


In the Room Where You Sleep

by ab2fsycho



Series: The Candle Cult [9]
Category: The Candle Cult
Genre: Dream demons, Multi, Oviposition, anything featuring Geist n Nansi is bad, bug demon sex, fucking avoooooid if you cant stand cruelty, gemmys crazy, god bless luster seriously, good booterfly, i hate them but they have a purpose, luster is the sweetest baby, so if you see them in a chapter summary, thats not news, thats why theyre the bad bugs, what the purpose is we just dont know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-05-04 22:44:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 33
Words: 41,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5351153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ab2fsycho/pseuds/ab2fsycho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are strange demons wandering throughout the Candle Cult. This is the story of Phobias and the havoc they cause while wandering around their host's minds. Introducing the Bed Bugs Gemmy and Luster, and the Bad Bugs Geist and Nansi.</p><p>WARNING: Any chapter that features the Bad Bugs, the warnings I've placed on this fic applies. The Bed Bugs however are safe save for a few snide remarks and pissy Gemmy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Courtship of Phobias

Two things tended to happen when Gemmy was sought after by another Phobia. One, the opponent wound up running. Two, Gemmy wound up killing them. Gemmy was neither merciful nor negotiable in courtship, and that won him his isolation. He didn't have time for the weak or fainthearted, and he really wasn't interested in pursuing anyone.

But the butterfly had been persistent, more persistent than the others. More importantly, he survived. Their first encounter, it was Gemmy who fled. Torn up from the fight, he'd actually had to hide from Luster. Their second encounter Gemmy had narrowly gotten out of the other's hold, squirming his way from under the winged Phobia with a few more major injuries than before.

The third encounter, he was beginning to want the other to win.

When he realized that he'd growled and hissed and clicked his tail, pacing in his shelter and flopping in random nesting areas. He curled up in frustration, unsure whether to be angrier with himself for giving in at the first good fight or with Luster for being so damn interested. He wanted to struggle and come out on top as he always had in the past. At the same time . . . .

One more fight determined his fate.

Gemmy was wandering about the realm when he saw the shadow cover him. Luster quickly followed, landing on his back heavily and immediately pinning him to the ground. Gemmy let out a feral yowl, Luster grabbing his horns with two hands and pushing his face into the ground. Gemmy kicked, pincers lurching up to latch onto one of his wings. Luster hissed, growling in Gemmy's ear as the earwig clawed at the ground futilely. Another pair of palms latched onto a set of his and Gemmy tried to shake his head, but Luster held him still. His chest erupted with another yowl and suddenly something long and slick wrapped around his throat, soothing the noises he was creating. Gemmy shuddered under Luster, who now purred into his ear as his long tongue held Gemmy's throat closed.

Gemmy stilled, ceasing his clawing and struggling as he allowed his pincer to loosen. This was nowhere near as bloody as previous fights but . . . it wasn't necessarily over yet.

Luster responded immediately to the earwig's relaxing in his hold, tongue tightening before sliding from around the other's throat. The butterfly's tongue stroked over Gemmy's neck and head, Luster purring almost affectionately as his body pressed closer to Gemmy's. Pressing between the earwig's legs, Luster forced his tail to the side as he started rutting against Gemmy. Encouraging him to allow him entry, Luster's member unsheathed itself and began pressing against Gemmy. Gripping Gemmy's horns and arms roughly, he purred and licked the earwig's pointed ear. Only now was he asking to take him, now when Gemmy couldn't (or wouldn't) escape.

Luster started panting above him, the sound combined with the sensation of his tongue making Gemmy croon in response. The butterfly pressed his member harder against him, seeming less like a demand and more like a beg.

Gemmy liked that.

He shuddered, burying his face against the dirt as he allowed the butterfly access to his body. Luster slid into him, letting out a purr that was . . . astonishingly beautiful in Gemmy's ear. The earwig shook and met the other Phobia's sounds with moans of his own as Luster filled him completely. Gemmy's body betrayed him as his hips drove back against Luster's, encouraging him to move. Luster hummed so loudly and pleasantly he felt it against his back. Thrusting slowly into him at first, Gemmy met his movements with his own as he dug his fingers into the ground. Croons and grunts spilling from his mouth, Luster hastened his movements when he found the earwig was no longer struggling. That long tongue graced the back of Gemmy's head and ran down his back, the butterfly letting go of one horn to brace against the ground while still clutching the other. Gemmy twitched beneath him, body arching into the Luster's as the butterfly started growling in his ear. The tongue receded and a set of fangs buried into the back of Gemmy's neck. Gemmy cried out as he clenched around the other, tightening just enough to milk Luster's release into him. Both were left shaking, steadily stilling against one another. Luster released his neck, rubbing his face against Gemmy's head as he let go of the earwig's horn and arms. His palms stroked the Phobia's back and sides as he slowly sheathed his member and let Gemmy adjust.

Luster didn't get off of Gemmy, holding him and caressing him as he purred against his head. Gemmy shivered, the motive clear to him long before Luster let out a verbal claim, "Mine."

Gemmy didn't argue as the butterfly guided him to his new shelter, instead thinking of what it might entail for him to be Luster's.

And Luster to be his.  
\--  
Gemmy grunted as Luster climbed on top of him, his tail clicking in agitation as the other Phobia stepped on every part of him that was sore from the latest round of terrors he'd wrought. When Luster finally settled on him, curling up and covering them with his wings, Gemmy sighed in relief.

He groaned, indicating that Luster had gotten heavier.

Luster hissed, saying he hadn't.

Gemmy snorted in disbelief as Luster's tongue slid from between his fangs and licked up the length of the other's neck. Gemmy hummed, shifting slightly under Luster.

Then Luster rubbed at Gemmy's belly affectionately and the earwig Phobia grinned. Luster purred above him lovingly.  
\--  
Gemmy paced, snarling and hissing and in general just being terribly moody. Luster watched this for a solid hour, letting the earwig flop about their home clicking his tail. If any other Phobia chose now to interrupt the earwig's tirade, they would be gutted on the spot.

But when Luster flew down to the pacing, growling Phobia, Gemmy simply turned and stilled. Luster hissed, asking what was troubling his mate. When Gemmy did not reply, instead yowling and turning away to pace more, Luster pursued. Standing slightly on two legs rather than walking on all six limbs, he placed himself taller than the other and snapped his jaws twice warningly.

Gemmy spun on him, striking out with a clawed hand and raking a set of marks down his clavicle.

Luster hissed and backed away, tongue darting out to lick his own wound. Gemmy stopped moving, an apologetic croon slipping his throat as he started to approach. Luster bristled and growled at him, the wound weeping still despite his licks. The butterfly hissed again at the earwig, his mate who had hurt him.

Gemmy lowered himself to the ground, tail no longer clicking in irritation but lowered shamefully. He cried softly, pitifully, as he crawled towards Luster apologetically. Seeing this display luster let him approach. As Gemmy came to settle at his feet, his own golden tongues darted out to caress the marks he'd left on Luster. The butterfly's body curved over top of the other, who cleaned the wound and whined out apologies for hurting his mate. Luster purred back at him, quieter growls telling him not to do it again. When the wound had stopped bleeding, Gemmy curled under him and allowed Luster to cover his body with his own.

After a while the apologetic whines and reassuring purrs quieted, and Gemmy finally gestured to his middle and let out a pained noise. Luster rubbed the spot, searching for injuries and finding none external. Then he purred and curled tighter over Gemmy, licking up his face and nuzzling his neck and head. Massaging the part of Gemmy's belly that was bound to be sore for a good while, Luster purred and encouraged his mate onto a softer bedding where he could better rest.

Gemmy let the butterfly massage and care for him, humming at how his mate covered him like a blanket.


	2. If You Leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gemmy remembers the day he lost the one thing he ever cared about vividly.

He hadn’t wanted to love. He hadn’t wanted to care, or feel. He’d ripped off his antennae as a youth because he didn’t like the sensations they brought. He’d run from every Phobia who drew near, only interacted with the gods who ruled them if necessary and even then he was hostile. Gemmy hadn’t wanted anyone or anything, except to live alone and without the hassle of company. With his reputation and lack of antennae, it was assumed he was incapable of feeling anything. Even he had started to believe he was completely unfeeling.

 

And yet he had been proven wrong, and yanked from his home alone to live in a butterfly’s nest. With Luster he had produced many children. Hundreds of years together, they went unchallenged in their home. Their offspring went on to be rumored the most beautiful as well as the most unstable Phobias to roam the realm. Gemmy was . . . happy. He knew the feeling, even without the almost sacred antennae.

 

But one day he discovered the price of feeling. That price came in the form of an absence. Luster’s absence. He knew the butterfly had taken up the challenge of defending a particular god’s dreams when another god had decided to tamper. He knew the tampering bastard to be Zeus. He knew nothing else.

 

He did not know why Luster had not yet come home to him.

 

Gemmy wasn’t one to worry, but by the second day he was antsy. On the third, the earwig was running madly in search of Luster. He had learned very quickly that since his mating with Luster, he did not handle being alone very well anymore. He wanted his mate and he wanted him now.

 

He recalled in vivid color his Luster’s wings. Their transparency as they opened and closed. Their deceptively soft edges. Their strength as they carried Luster through the realm. He recalled their myriad patterns and shimmering surface. Running his fingertips and tongues over the joints to sooth his mate after a long flight. That was one of the few times Luster didn’t insist on lying across Gemmy, but instead let the earwig curl up on him. Their grace. Their beauty. Their silhouette and shadow looming overhead as he was captured, taken, made into Luster’s mate.

 

Their blood.

 

Their bright blood, staining those patterns and disturbing their shimmer.

 

Luster’s blood, on the grass. Like . . . honey. Golden and clear.

 

Honey.

 

Blood.

 

Luster’s blood.

 

Gemmy stood over the wings with shaking hands. There was so much blood. Blood he’d drawn before, blood he had tasted. He dropped down onto the wings, willing the rest of Luster’s body to appear. Willing Luster to appear. His Luster . . . he was . . . .

 

Gemmy shook all over, gathering the once majestic wings up in his arms as faint simpers escaped his choked throat. They were limp in his hands, nowhere near as lively as he knew they could be, as he had once seen. He felt the slick of honey colored blood on his fingers, his arms, and he just . . . crushed the wings to his chest and yowled. He screamed as loud as his throat would allow, and even then he screamed louder. He tasted his own blood from the strain on his throat, gripping the appendages and doubling over from exhaustion at his own wails.

 

They hadn’t even left him a body to hold and grieve for.

 

He didn’t remember the events that followed as vividly as he did the discovery of Luster’s loss. He knew what he had sworn to do. He knew he would not—could not—rest until every god who had let his butterfly die was ripped from this universe. He knew he had been cast out from not only the Phobia realm and Olympus, but dragged into a clan of mortals and branded.

 

As if he couldn’t tear them all apart in their worst nightmares.

 

As if they were stronger than he.

 

He’d survived for decades alongside a mortal beast who was an expert in the thing he hated the absolute most: feeling. It was feeling that had brought him here. It was feeling that had earned him banishment and the title of fugitive. It was feeling that had given him the brand on the back of his shoulder. He hated the kid whose own master forced him to brand him. He hated the black haired and feathered things that had captured him. He hated the whole Greek pantheon for what they had taken from him. He hated himself for falling so far and losing everything. His reputation. His mate. His duty, his . . . everything.

 

The one thing he did not hate was the one who had made him have all of these feelings.

 

Strangely, he did not hate the one he had lost.

 

He almost wished he did.


	3. When I Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tea and Aiden have finally fallen back into a routine after Tea has come back from a terrible encounter with Greek god Eros. Unfortunately Gemmy was not satisfied with the outcome. 
> 
> He's ready for the pantheon to perish and is willing to force Tea to let him have his way.

“This wasn’t part of our deal.” Tea had been taken to Olympus by a vengeful love god. He’d endured torture, feared never returning, had been interrogated over Gemmy’s presence. Tea had given and given and given what he could.

And Gemmy wanted more still. After what felt like months (and what probably had been months) of absolute silence from the earwig, he wanted more. The Phobia had confronted him in the mindscape, disrupting the dream of a young Rowan chasing rabbits in favor of demanding what Tea deemed to be too much. “Let me retaliate.”

“You did enough.” That they had not been yanked back to wherever Olympus was upon being taken back to the Candle Cult was a miracle. That Gemmy wanted to go back . . ., “You’re supposed to stay in my head. You never said anything about attacking a pantheon.”

Gemmy roared in his mind, Tea stepping back as the earwig lashed out with his claws and began circling Tea aggressively. Tea didn’t let the dream demon out of his line of sight for a minute. While he was still Master over him, he wouldn’t put it past Gemmy to ignore all pain of disobedience in favor of ripping into him. “I won’t be attacking,” the earwig snarled. “I’ll be killing.”

“You can’t kill gods!” That just . . . that must disrupt some sort of balance. That must be impossible on some level. At the very least implausible and inadvisable. And Eros . . . Tea shuddered. The god had hurt him. He’d hit him in some fairly weak spots, and Tea had a friend who did in fact want Eros dead. However, after that encounter, he was more than understanding over the fact that Tea would rather just butt out and move on. But . . . what about Psyche? She didn’t deserve to die. She had been kind to him.

Gemmy bristled and grinned maniacally, rows of fangs showing and tongues flicking out as he declared, “Oh, but I can.” Gemmy’s usually crouched and hunched body lowered even more to the ground and that should have been a warning to Tea. “I really can.” Tea grunted as the earwig launched, crying out as he was tackled to the ground. “And I will!”

The next thing Tea knew, Gemmy’s claws were driven into his gut through his shirt. Tea’s back arched and before he could gasp out a command, the earwig was disemboweling him. Digging and digging, scraping out his innards by the handful. The wet and heavy sound of his organs being spilled onto the ground was all he could sense. A numbness crept over him and he no longer had control over his limbs. He couldn’t see, taste, touch, smell. All there was was that sound.

And Gemmy’s rage underlying it all.

“Ge . . . Ge . . .,” he heard himself try to form the beast’s name, but it wasn’t . . . he couldn’t.

He felt it when Gemmy’s fist closed around his heart. “Sorry tree,” Gemmy uttered as he oh so slowly pulled the heart from its place. “Only I’m not. You’ll be right where you belong.” Claws dug into the organ and hit against bone as the Phobia’s fist moved. “All you need are some antennae and you’ll fit right in.”

Tea’s hearing started to get hazy as he slipped further and further from his senses. By the time he was completely in the dark, all he heard was Gemmy laughing.

The only thing he felt was that he was falling.

\--

Gemmy sucked in a breath as he opened three eyes on Tea’s forehead as he felt the other leave his body and float towards his old home. That Tea couldn’t be killed was a minor hiccup in his plans. No, he couldn’t be killed, but he could be banished. And he certainly had been banished, to the realm where dream demons live. He belonged there. They sensed and felt like him. Gemmy didn’t need a bleeding heart lingering in the back of his mind. He needed a body.

And he had taken what he needed and discarded the rest.

Sitting up almost mechanically, he felt his arms, tail, and horns stretching the half skinwalker’s body and skin to accommodate. He flexed his clawed fingers and toes, feeling his way back into his ‘master’s’ body. He settled quite easily in the broader, heavier frame.

Gemmy slipped out of the bed he was in, ignoring the sleeping form beside him. He leered as he crept from the room, moving as quietly as he could while still getting used to Tea’s body again. He did not need to wake anyone. He did not need to be seen. He did not need to be questioned.

He was going back to Olympus to finish what had been denied him. Retribution was his and no one was going to stop him.

Not even the giant to whom he allegedly belonged.

\--

When Aiden woke up, Tea was gone. He thought nothing of it at first.

But then his heart clenched.

He was . . . gone . . . completely.

Aiden couldn’t feel him anymore.

He heard slamming doors and a laugh he should have cowered at. He should have hidden. He should have screamed, found someone to help. He should have done any number of things before flinging the covers back and running after the sound.

But he didn’t.

And to this day he would not be able to say why, only that the one thing he was willing to live for was being taken from him again.


	4. Find Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gemmy is walking around in Tea's body while Tea has been thrown into the Land of Dreams.

“It’s not very good looking.”

“Strange mortal. Strange mortal.”

“I don’t like its gums.”

“Is it supposed to have black inside of it?”

“Maybe it’s suffocating.”

“But it’s breathing normally.”

The words were not spoken aloud, nor were the creatures surrounding the intruder of their realm very gentle in their investigation. A cacophony of hisses, growls, and hums rose up as the cluster of Phobias surrounded the black blooded human skinwalker hybrid, insects and arachnids alike running antennae and hairs and fingertips over a body so soft in comparison to theirs. What a strange creature, they collectively thought. It wasn’t like the mortals they were typically assigned to.

More importantly, it was in their realm.

It was in a place no mortal should be capable of reaching on its own.

“Perhaps it was sent here.”

“By what?”

“By who?”

“One of us.”

Their antennae dipped to the soft body once again, searching for a trace of evidence. Once found . . . .

The hisses intensified, yowls erupting through the other Phobias as they recognized the scent on the mortal. They leapt back almost in unison, pushing against one another to get away from the mortal who smelled of a particular earwig none had seen in decades. An earwig they had all been all too satisfied to see go. There were some there with injuries from encounters with him.

And some there who knew of one he never would have injured intentionally.

Several darted off and away from the mortal, fleeing back to their own domains and homes. Some scattered with grubs resting on their backs. One dragonfly circled twice before shooting off in one direction at a most incredible speed. A mere handful remained surrounding the mortal.

And they debated over its fate.

“Kill it!” hissed one rhino beetle. “It does not belong here to begin with!”

“No!” argued a black widow. She came to cover the mortal with her body, her poison dripping in preparation of his waking. “Let’s keep it.”

Another beetle shoved her off without a moment’s hesitation. She hissed in response to their roar before they snapped back. “Keep it for the Swarm Father.”

“He has no use for it!” the widow declared. “He’ll just send it back!”

“Send it back!” multiple declared all at once. Another cacophony filled the air as the Phobias bickered. The widow started to tug the mortal away as the beetles locked horns. A lunar moth fanned her wings out fully in an attempt to block the widow’s departure. The widow hissed and the moth growled back as she kept her wings displayed. The widow jerked the body of the mortal away.

And he woke with a start.

Tea’s eyes snapped open as his back was jarred. He immediately grabbed for his chest and stomach, expecting to feel blood. But . . . he had been in his mindscape when Gemmy had torn him open.

He . . . Tea was not in his mindscape.

A disorientation overwhelmed him and he dry heaved, nothing in his stomach available to come up save for acid. It filled his mouth, and he about sprayed the substance over the dark, somewhat grassy ground beneath him. When he looked back up, his vision cleared and his eyes adjusted to the darkness of this region. He blinked several times as he took in just what was surrounding him.

Bugs.

Giant bugs.

Their energy signature screamed at him, their similarities to the thing that had thrown him here not lost on him. These were Phobias. He was . . . he was in . . . he wasn’t on his plane anymore. He couldn’t be. There was no way.

He was jerked back once again, his eyes landing on his assailant. His mouth gaped and a scream lodged in his throat as he beheld the giant spider. Her mouth opened and venom dripped from her fangs as it neared his body. Shaking, he drove a fist in the center of her several eyes and tried to get up.

Only to be yanked off his feet by the lunar moth the widow had been fighting. Tea did scream then. They were all huge. They were all so much larger than him. Insects that stood and loomed, arachnids and beetles that dwarfed the insects, it was . . . it was . . . .

Tea had not felt so small and helpless in so, so long.

He tried to shout. He tried to demand they release him. He tried to order them to send him back, send him back to his own realm, to his own mind. Return him to his body, force Gemmy . . . .

How was he going to reclaim his body from Gemmy? How was he going to get back to the cult? Back to his friends? His new family? His . . . ?

He needed help. Only, the beings that could helping were currently yowling and snarling over him like he was a ragdoll.

Tea’s scream finally fled his burning mouth and he immediately regretted it. The Phobias descended upon him like vultures upon a corpse. Pretty soon, he was probably going to be a corpse.

Dropped to the ground, it was almost comical how one Phobia latched onto each of his limbs and started tugging. It would have almost been funny if he didn’t have four hands on each of his arms and legs gripping harshly and pulling with an inhuman might. His mouth gaped and he threw his head back as he felt bones being popped from their sockets. He squeezed his eyes shut as he was stretched and pulled and jerked.

And then a loud thump on the ground as something struck down reached his ears, and he was once again thrown down. The wind knocked out of him, chitin rattled as the Phobias scattered and fled and a hiss that drowned out all of the others made him cringe. He regretted the cringe, his stretched limbs announcing their stressed joints in rapid succession. His eyes watered as a shadow fell over him. He blinked slowly, looking up to see a dragonfly landing softly over him. He almost jerked away as small palms then clasped his face and he was met with the smallest Phobia he had seen yet. A silk moth with four eyes tilted her head and looked at him, her antennae drooping to brush his face. He tried to twist away, but a very small, almost inaudible, “Calm,” reached his ears and . . . .

He obeyed.

Tea obeyed.

Heart hammering in his chest, he continued to stare at the somewhat chubby silk moth. She dragged her appendages over his face briefly, then pulled back with a hum. She looked up at the dragonfly standing over him and cooed. He cooed back.

Then a third Phobia, who hunched as he walked as if he were supposed to be carrying something heavy on his otherwise bare back, joined the two. The silk moth released him and Tea’s gaze flitted about to see that all but these three Phobias had gone. He still heard them yelling and crying in the distance. Tea gazed up on the third Phobia, whose five eyes locked on him as the silk moth cooed to him as well. He purred in response.

One lone antenna shifted on his head to touch Tea’s face and he must have sensed something incredibly appealing. Tea’s only reason to believe this was because the Phobia clasped his face much like the silk moth, only much gentler. He was greeted by a deep, almost honey laced voice, “Where is he?”

Tea, who was still shivering and cringing in spite of his pulled limbs, murmured, “Who?”

The Phobia, who he suddenly realized was a wingless butterfly, clarified, “Mine.”

Tea stiffened. What . . . what did he mean? What was that supposed to mean? Was he . . . ?

“The earwig,” the dragonfly further clarified in a harsh, gravelly voice of equal depth.

And Tea understood. But . . . he couldn’t give a better answer than, “In my body.”

The butterfly hissed and Tea flinched. The dragonfly hissed as well, the silk moth humming slightly as she attempted to chime into the conversation. Their speech was foreign to him, but also very familiar. He’d heard Gemmy do these very things many times.

And they knew Gemmy.

They wanted to know where Gemmy was.

As they continued to speak over him, he tried to relax enough to use his senses on them. Gemmy’s emotions always read fuzzily to him, but he could in fact read the bug. As he brushed over their feelings with his own, reading them carefully, he sensed . . . longing. Sadness. A very . . . quiet hint of joy. Anticipation.

Urgency.

Tea trembled. They had asked about Gemmy. Did they mean to bring Gemmy back here? Could they put him back in his own head then? “E-excuse me?” Tea stammered. They didn’t immediately answer him. The silk moth looked to him, ignoring the dragonfly and butterfly as she quietly addressed Tea. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she were only just barely out of being a grub. Or whatever stage that came before this in bug cycles. Tea was not well versed in bugs and Gemmy had told him repeatedly that they merely looked like bugs and were not actual bugs. “Can you all hel-lp me? Get home?”

The silk moth hummed enthusiastically in response, only to correct herself and answer in English. “Can you help us find Gemmy?”

The butterfly and dragonfly stopped their own conversation to gaze down at Tea. He was shaken and scared and disoriented. He could barely move let alone give them an honest answer. He gave them as honest an answer as he could manage. “I can try.” His stomach turned. “What-t do you want with him?” As much as he sometimes loathed Gemmy, as often as the earwig annoyed and terrified him, as draining as his puppet could be, he was still Tea’s responsibility. He still had to know what they intended for the earwig.

The butterfly clasped his head again. “I am Luster.” He said that as though that were supposed to mean something to Tea. Tea understood when Luster then added, “Gemmy is my mate.”

“Yep yep yep,” the dragonfly added quietly.

“And I want him back.”

Tea was afraid. Why had Gemmy and Luster split in the first place? Was Luster the reason Gemmy acted like . . . Gemmy?

“Bring him with us,” the dragonfly declared as one of his antenna touched Tea’s face. “He is confuddled, and we have much to discuss.”

Tea’s brow furrowed. “Where are you t-taking me?”

“The Swarm Father must advise,” the dragonfly declared. Luster hissed and the silk moth whimpered at the mention of this alleged Swarm Father. “And we must hope he is easily found.”

“We do not want Gemmy in your body for long.”

Tea agreed wholeheartedly with the silk moth’s statement. “You will help me get back?” He knew he had asked that, but he needed to hear it. He needed to hear it to believe it.

A nod from Luster was enough for him. Suddenly he was feeling that inkling of joy as if it were his own.

He hoped he could forget this encounter as easily as Gemmy had thrown him into it. He had a life to return to, and he was eager to do so.


	5. In the Shallows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aiden echoes Gemmy's feelings on losing a lover, and Tea gets a little help from a dream god and their demons.

Tearing through the forest, his heart was pounding. How had he gotten away so quickly? How could he not feel him?

He saw his lover at some point, hunched over and walking on all . . . six. He had six limbs now.

Seven.

He had the tail.

He was taking on Gemmy’s traits.

Or . . . .

“Tea!” he called out, immediately regretting having drawn the creature’s attention to him.

Because when it turned around to face him, it was most definitely not Tea looking back at him. It was his demon. The voice, which was so, so different from Tea’s gentle one, was a dead giveaway. “The tree isn’t here right now. Please leave a message.”

Aiden bristled. There had always been a part of him that feared the Phobia that he and King had once captured. It was unruly. It was wild. It was terrifying, and cruel, and snide, and disgusting.

It was everything Tea wasn’t and didn’t deserve.

Aiden glowered, a rage filling him that was decades old. It was more familiar to him than he cared to admit, but without Tea there to calm him down he had no barriers against it. And in his humble opinion, he fucking needed it to face the . . . monster who had, who must have, done something to his lover. “What did you do to him?” he snarled in a voice so similar to Tea’s own growl that it should have scared him.

It only fueled his wrath.

And Gemmy grinned at it. “I sent him away. He’ll fit right in, trust me.” Gemmy’s eyes narrowed as he turned fully towards Aiden. “He’ll probably be happier there than he was here.”

Seeing Gemmy’s and Tea’s faces molded together in a horrible caricature of their bond was both unnerving and infuriating. Especially when faced with that grin. That grin he’d seen on the face of his lover while heartless. That grin that said much more than the actual words spilling from Gemmy’s mouth and Tea’s lips. His breath quickened and his heart thrashed within him. He was shaking with fury. “Give. Him. Back.”

“Maybe. When I’m done.”

There was something in Gemmy’s voice that told him that by the time he was through, the Tea Aiden would get back might be in pieces. Aiden didn’t care how durable Tea swore he was. He didn’t care that Tea could remove any part of his body and come back together in a mere matter of days.

He didn’t.

Care.

He wanted Tea back, and he wanted him unharmed.

Which was the only reason he wasn’t charging the monster before him now.

“Give him back now,” he commanded.

“No.”

“Now!”

The shout made Gemmy recoil in a hiss as he himself charged at Aiden. Aiden stood still, bracing in anticipation of an attack. But Gemmy stopped just before he reached the human, yowling in his face. Aiden roared back, a tactic he’d picked up when he’d been a trapper of beasts.

A killer of beasts.

This was a beast he could kill.

If only he wasn’t in Tea’s body.

He would simply have to get him out of Tea’s body.

Lunging for the Phobia, he let his talons grow and slice at the creature. Gemmy lowered to the ground and four hands grasped his waist and flipped him over a shoulder. He tumbled and landed hard on his back. As the Phobia possessing his lover shifted above him, he was quick to roll away and get back on his feet. He charged again, fangs bared and claws ripping. He drove a blow into Gemmy’s side and the creature yowled again. “This weak body!” Gemmy howled, piercing the now otherwise silent night with his own fury.

“So leave it!” Aiden yelled, charging again.

Gemmy dodged, this time striking out and landing a blow in Aiden’s back. Aiden let out his own howl in pain as the Phobia declared. “I need it!”

“I need him!” Aiden shouted back.

There was a moment of hesitation on the Phobia’s part, one that allowed Aiden to land a blow to his face. Gemmy’s head twisted to the side and Aiden saw his advantage. He was stopped only when two of Gemmy’s hands came up to clasp the human’s wrists. Aiden hissed at the grip, then spit in the Phobia’s eyes. Gemmy blinked away the saliva holding the raging former Puppeteer back far enough so he could do no more damage. His tail clicked rapidly in his rage at the human.

And his sorrow.

There was sorrow in him, and Aiden glimpsed it briefly.

“You need him?” Gemmy’s voice was a lot quieter than before, and it struck a chord in Aiden. The quiet didn’t last long as Gemmy’s own fury rose up to meet Aiden’s. “So join him.”

Gemmy lifted Aiden up and threw him across the landscape. He hit something hard, and was stunned. Rage gave to anguish and anguish gave to a thirst. A thirst for vengeance.

His eyes glowed red.

Blood would soon coat the forest floor.

\--

There was a comfort to being carried, a pleasantness to having feather light brushes of antennae over his face and monitoring his state. His arms draped over Luster’s shoulders while the butterfly’s second pair of arms held his legs around his middle, there was a startling amount of gentleness to be felt in the chitin covered creatures. He’d only ever known Gemmy. Gemmy had never been gentle. This was new to him.

From Luster he learned the dragonfly was named Skiff and the silk moth Seda. He also learned that Luster had been searching for Gemmy for about as long as Tea had had Gemmy. Tea had not told him that he owned the bug. He did not seem to need to.

Somehow they already knew the nature of their relationship.

He was going to ask how, only they were then greeted by the softest voice Tea had ever heard. It was like listening to a cloud, and it uttered so calmly, “So it is you.” A different, darker, gentler set of antennae ran across his cheeks and Tea opened his eyes. Peering up over Luster’s shoulder at the gigantic being before him, an energy surged from them and flooded Tea with . . . something familiar. He shuddered at the notion, eyeing the tall god with six eyes and six wings. The wings fluttered, feathers brushing against one another as they straightened up to their full height. The god dwarfed them all. The one they called Swarm Father had at once stricken Tea as menacing, and yet after having heard his voice he knew he had nothing to fear. Still, they were shockingly large. They dominated the area, drawing the attention of Tea and all three Phobias traveling with him. Tea briefly questioned why he used the pronoun ‘they’ so readily when addressing the god. Then they spoke again and it sounded like a group of voices speaking at once, “We would be lying if we said we had not been expecting to meet you at some point.”

Tea was shivering, muscles and joints aching in his terror of the god. And he was scared. He’d never felt this much energy in one space before. Not with only this number of beings. It seemed like there was more than just the five of them there. It was overwhelming to say the least.

And the Swarm Father claimed to have been expecting him. “You w-were?”

They nodded, withdrawing their long antennae. The antennae stood briefly, as tall as the god’s torso was long. Then they shifted to lay flat against their back and between their wings, completely unnoticeably by unknowing onlookers. “Do you think we do not know when one of our Phobias has been branded?” Shame filled Tea and he looked down at the god’s feet. His eyes almost hurt as they passed over brightly colored robes. The god’s voice turned lighter. “Do not regret. You saved his life in branding him.” Tea’s brow furrowed as they continued adding, “And in turn, saved us much trouble.”

Tea was confused, looking back up at the god’s face. The eyes blinked intermittently, but ultimately they were all open and looking at him. “What do you mean?”

The god tilted their head, and was startlingly calm and matter-of-fact in their explanation. “You took responsibility of a Phobia who bore ill will towards our pantheon. Without our intervention, you managed to keep him at bay for a good portion of a mortal lifespan.”

“Control didn’t last forever, though,” Skiff murmured with a scoff, twisting his head from side to side so his large eyes could take in all who surrounded him.

Tea didn’t argue with the dragonfly. He was right. He had lost control of Gemmy. “Can I ask why he is bent on killing the pantheon?” Now calmer, he still felt overwhelmed. While the urgency from before he had sensed within Luster was still very much alive, he wanted to know why what was happening was happening.

“Me,” came the clipped answer from Luster.

The god nodded once. “The conflict that led to Luster’s loss of wings and Gemmy’s rampage is an old one. They got caught in a crossfire that they were lucky to have actually survived.”

“What conflict?” Tea asked.

None of them answered. The god’s only explanation was, “A feud between brothers.”

Tea thought about it. The only siblings he could truly think of were Zeus and . . . that was the answer. He needed look no further. If all the legends were true, those three brothers would do this without blinking. He shook, Luster shifting Tea up higher on his back and asking, “Why did you not come for him sooner?” He glanced to the butterfly. Gemmy had had a mate. Why had he not been returned to his mate?

He should have known the answer. “Because he became your responsibility.”

But . . . Gemmy had a life. Tea shook his head. It wasn’t like the Puppeteers had ever respected that their beasts had had lives prior to being beasts, but Gemmy had technically belonged to a god. Didn’t a god have authority over human beings and their stupid notions? “Couldn’t you have just taken him back?”

The Swarm Father shook their head. “A contract is a contract. What you have with Gemmy is a contract that must be honored, even by gods.” They tilted their head to the other side. “Which leads to the question, are you willing to take on more responsibility?”

Tea’s brow furrowed as he vaguely heard Seda cooing up at them. “M-more?” Would he be punished for Gemmy’s actions as of right now?

Oh God, what was Gemmy doing in his body now?

“Because he has made clear his intent to kill, he is barred from this realm and all others where gods may tread.” They gestured to the lot before them. “Luster is loyal to his mate, however. And his companions are loyal to him. They could have left this realm, but that would have been in defiance of us and they would have had to answer to us.”

Tea followed the explanation. “But . . . if I take responsibility . . .,” the god nodded as he finished the statement, “they won’t be yours to command.”

Two sets of eyes closed at once, the bottom pair remaining open on the god’s face. When they spoke again, it only sounded like one voice was speaking. “You have no idea how pleasant it is not to have to spell the parameters out to you. Thank you for understanding.” Tea was so taken aback by the shift that when that pair of eyes closed and the middle pair opened, he didn’t even jump at the change of vocal tone in the next singular voice. “Truly, the number of fools whose minds I see in a day or night is exhausting.”

Tea couldn’t help it. He turned a startled gaze to Skiff, then to Seda. He asked, “What . . . just happened?”

All six eyes opened again, but Tea received no such answer. Instead, they spoke once more in the calm multitude of voices and declared, “Now to return you to your rightful place. Do you accept the responsibility?”

Tea’s brow furrowed and he took a good long pause to try and reorient his thoughts. “I . . . what . . . would I have to do?”

“Make sure they do not kill anyone.”

He sighed, then asked, “Do any of you guys intend to kill anyone?” Once again, it struck him how comical this situation could be were he not the one suffering in it. That they all turned what appeared to be expressionless stares upon him left him thankful he could feel literally no malice in this group. “In that case . . . if it gets me back into my body . . . I’ll take them.” Just let me go home, he thought. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and he chose to go home.

“In that case,” the Swarm Father waved a hand and Tea had to close his eyes as a light shone in their palm, “you all are aware you will not be permitted to return?” The Phobias hummed in unison, Luster’s a little more eager than the others. “And,” the god turned their gaze to Tea, “you are willing to allow them all into your mind?”

Tea’s eyes widened. “All?!” He’d have to swallow them all?

“I will reside in the general vicinity,” Skiff declared, as if sensing Tea’s discomfort. He likely did as he brushed an antenna over Tea’s forehead almost reassuringly.

“Me too,” Seda declared.

But Luster wanted to. The butterfly turned his head towards Tea and asked, “Will you accept me?”

Considering Luster was Gemmy’s mate, Tea didn’t see much choice in the matter. Perhaps he could make Gemmy’s stay in Tea’s head a little more pleasant. He nodded. Luster offered him a palm, which Tea strained to shake as a show of their deal being sealed. He groaned as his arm rested limply against Luster’s chest again.

The Swarm Father nodded. “So be it. The Phobias will travel forth first. Then once your mind is empty again, we will return you to it.”

Tea nodded. He didn’t know the state in which his body was going to be when he returned to it.

But he was returning to it.

That was all that mattered.

\--

Aiden was a bloody mess, and so was Gemmy. They had just locked in a wrestle when a blinding light flashed and, out of nowhere, they were both struck over the head. Aiden fell unconscious from the blow, but Gemmy merely collapsed and groaned. He held his head as a series of voices reached his ears.

“Perhaps some sense should be talked into him.” The voice addressed another, individual. Gemmy could tell in the change of tone. “You run and hide.”

“But what about—”

“I will follow.” The deeper voice turned to another. “Keep these ones occupied. Perhaps use the human as a shield.”

A chill ran over Gemmy’s body—Tea’s body—when the next voice spoke up. “Much as he still can be one.”

“Convince him to let the creature back in. We will find you later.”

Hisses. Hums. Gravelly voices.

Phobias.

When Gemmy was able to look up again, he did so just in time to see the brush shifting where the other two had fled. The human sat up before him and he tensed in preparation of a fight.

Then five.

Purple.

Eyes.

Opened.

And Gemmy went the stillest he had been in a very, very long time as he was addressed by the Phobia from the lips of the human Aiden, “Hello Gemmy.”


	6. Lying on My Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luster confronts Gemmy.

Aiden stood up slowly and Gemmy stared up through Tea’s three eyes, looking over the human he had been fighting. Only, he was no longer human. No, five eyes, horns, additional arms, and a thorax were not very human.

Gemmy lowered himself to the ground, this body a similar size to his own but still bulkier and heavier than he was used to. He snarled at the creature standing upright, hunched over and glaring down at him. It hissed back at him and it sent chills over him before it spoke in a disembodied voice, “Do you not recognize me?”

The earwig stilled entirely at that voice. His blood froze and his body bristled. Tea’s hairs stood on end, a strange reaction that somehow coupled well with his tail clicking warningly. He started grunting, the noise quickly turning aggressive as he braced on the ground and roared. “Imposter!” he bellowed. How dare he? How dare this creature impersonate him!? It had no right, no godforsaken right!

Gemmy charged, ready to tackle the other to the ground. It dodged, then grabbed him by the horns and threw its whole bodyweight into shoving his face into the ground. Gemmy yowled as it slid about to straddle his back, reaching around to try and claw at its legs. Its second pair of palms clasped about his and before the familiarity of the scene made him cry out in agony and rage, there was a tongue laving the back of his soft neck. He froze again as it slid around to tighten around his throat and keep it closed, quieting him long enough to let that familiar purr settle in his ear. Gemmy felt grief wash over him, fresh and painful as the creature on his back reminded him of what he’d lost. A new anger ripped through him as he writhed once more, trying to squirm from under the beast imitating his dead mate.

The tongue receded quickly and it purred, “It is me, Gemmy.”

Gemmy clenched his free fists and slammed them into the ground, yelling, “Luster is dead!” A devastated yowl followed the declaration as he reiterated, “You are not him because he is dead.” He went limp under the creature, letting it pin him until it decided to kill him or get off. Once it got off of him, he was going to slaughter it for this horrible act.

He cringed as it started nuzzling the back of his head, whimpering, “It is me. I did not die. Listen to my voice, know that it is me.”

Wetness gathered in Tea’s eyes and Gemmy fought to shake them off, but the imposter held him by the horns. This body reacted so oddly. What was the purpose of water in the eyes to express this level of emotion? It just got in the way. “You cannot be him.” With that, his tail lurched up, pincers locking onto the other’s waist.

It growled, biting down on the back of his neck and pulling a cry from him. The sound vibrated in his pliable flesh and Gemmy stiffened at the pain and almost released his opponent. These bodies weren’t nearly as durable as he would like. Black blood dripped from the wound as the other’s mouth pulled away, the words, “Did you see Luster’s dead body?” Gemmy squirmed, not answering. The answer wasn’t important. What was important was that this creature was lying to him. He couldn’t know the answer. He couldn’t. “You did not. You could not have.” Gemmy yowled again and the beast bore down on his head, burying his mouth into the floor and making softer bones in Tea’s face crack under the pressure. Gemmy grunted more, but was quieter as the other hissed. Then it added, “A pair of torn wings does not equate a dead body.”

Gemmy felt his blood run cold once again and he ceased to function. Pincers releasing and eyes watering more now, he relaxed in the hold and was stunned to be released upon relaxation. When the other crawled off of him to crouch before him, he did not immediately get back up. He lay still, listening to the other purr and hiss and hum to him. He heard the jaws open and felt the tongue against his brow. It slid to his ear and down his jaw to his neck. It lapped at the wound the beast had left. It couldn’t be him . . . it couldn’t . . . .

Without warning, Gemmy kicked up and lunged for the other again. The other braced for impact, but instead of attacking Gemmy tore open the cloth the humans wore over their chests and backs. Shredding it, he jerked the pieces off the other before slipping behind the other and running four palms over its back.

The wings.

Its wings were missing.

His wings . . . .

Two scarred nubs sat useless on the back of the possessed human, Gemmy’s eyes locked on where beautiful black wings should have . . . would have been. Gemmy’s frozen blood thawed, and he melted to the ground. Body limp and weak, he crawled closer and clasped at the other’s feet as he was reduced to whine out pleas for a confirmation. Was it really him? His Luster? Please, oh please let it be.

The butterfly purred affectionately and bowed over him, covering the earwig’s body with his own just as he used to. Petting the Phobia as Gemmy nuzzled his clothed legs desperately, every caress pulled a cry from the earwig’s stolen lips. Water leaked from golden eyes, wetting the gray material on the limbs he clutched at. Gemmy opened his mouth and tilted his head up, tongues gracing over his mate’s soft torso as he tugged and beckoned him closer with groans and whimpers. There was a flurry of movement, and Gemmy quickly found himself on his back with Luster tearing at Tea’s trousers. The clothing disheveled and falling off his hips, one set of Luster’s palms gripped his hips fiercely while the others cupped Gemmy’s face. Gemmy didn’t feel the claws digging into his skin, focusing more on holding onto the body in which Luster had settled. His own claws dug harshly, drawing blood that dripped onto him as Luster’s tongue slid from his lips and stretched down to the tight entrance at the meeting of Gemmy’s thighs. The earwig’s back arched as he raked trenches into Luster’s back, the tongue probing at first before slipping in and widening the humanoid’s body for him. Talons pierced deep into Gemmy’s vulnerable hips as the earwig rocked back against the butterfly. The stretch burned, burned unnaturally to them as the tongue forced him open and slicked his entrance. Gemmy’s legs spread wider as he crooned and encouraged the other, who purred and asked if he was hurting. Gemmy didn’t care how much pain he endured so long as he had Luster again, so long as Luster was with him, touching him, filling him.

The tongue receded and Luster let go of Gemmy’s hips to tear open the material at his own. Tongue wrapping around his member briefly to slick it up as these bodies didn’t seem to self-lubricate, Luster pushed into Gemmy harshly and this time it did hurt. Gemmy yowled and twisted, but couldn’t let go, couldn’t comprehend letting Luster go. He drew the butterfly closer, pincers gently cupping the other’s thorax as he forced himself to move against Luster. Luster purred, leaning down to lick up Gemmy’s chest as he slammed hard and fast into him. He purred against Gemmy’s ear, promising he was staying and that he would never leave the other alone again. Gemmy whined, the pace painful but not unwelcome, the butterfly’s claws dragging over his skin and carving paths like Luster’s tongue, reclaiming what was his, what had always been his, what had never stopped being his. Gemmy’s tongues protruded, brushing lovingly over Luster’s face as the butterfly pounded into him and wrecked the bodies of the creatures they’d taken possession of.

A hot liquid poured from the tip of Gemmy’s own exposed member, which Luster’s tongue had glided over pleasantly just before it started leaking. Gemmy went limp, Luster thrusting roughly and unevenly a while longer before his own warmth spilled into the earwig. Both panted, nuzzling each other’s faces and palms gripping hard and needy. They purred and crooned, unwilling to let each other go but knowing they needed to return what they had stolen.

“Come back to me,” Gemmy begged against the butterfly’s throat. “Come back to me, do not leave me again.”

“Count the seconds,” Luster commanded, their energy quickly draining as they started to slip into unconsciousness. “I am on my way, and I will not let you go again.”

Gemmy whimpered, their features starting to recede from the thieved humanoid forms. “Yours.”

“Mine,” Luster murmured just before Tea’s and Aiden’s bodies reverted back to their normal forms. Bodies wrecked, they lay as Gemmy and Luster left them.

A wingless butterfly crawled from between Aiden’s lips and made its way to Tea’s. After it crawled in and reached its destination, the giant let out a sigh. Not a tired one, but one of relief.


	7. Watching Stars Collide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tea and Aiden are reunited along with Gemmy and Luster.

Tea woke up sore all over, gasping in pain just a moment before he felt hands framing his face. His eyes shot open and he was greeted by Aiden straddling his waist, completely nude and bleeding. Just like him. His lips moved, but Tea had difficulty hearing what he was saying over the buzzing in his head. A euphoria he knew wasn’t his combined with the terror of the familiarity of the pain he was experiencing, fuzzing over his senses. He couldn’t tell what Aiden was asking him, only muttering in response, “Aiden?” He blinked several times, then was left breathless as the man atop him pressed his lips firmly against Tea’s.

The fog in his mind stilled as he clasped Aiden’s shoulders, returning the fevered, rough kisses shamelessly. He shook from the pain wrought upon his body while something else had used it, gripping the other fiercely and moving his lips against desperate ones. After several rough and needy kisses, they slowed their pace to a gentle stop, Aiden’s lips a hairsbreadth from Tea’s as he snarled and Tea finally heard him, “Don’t you ever fucking do that again.”

Tea recalled brief images of Gemmy in his body, the otherworld where the Phobias resided, Luster . . . he couldn’t piece everything together, but he had enough information to assume. The names Skiff, Seda, and the Swarm Father all lingered in the back of his mind, but he was no longer able to picture the faces that went with them. Or the context.

Aiden was raining kisses on Tea’s neck as the half skinwalker responded, “Won’t. Promise. Won’t.”

“You better not,” Aiden actually whimpered against his throat. “I swear to God, you better not.” He pulled Tea up enough to wrap his arms around him, Tea returning the hug weakly as he grimaced and whined at the pain. Jesus, could the Phobias have gone a little easier on him? Aiden relinquished his hold, gently placing Tea back on the ground as he asked, “What hurts?”

“Everything,” Tea grunted honestly. He shook more now that Aiden was pulling back.

Glancing about, Aiden let go of Tea completely and backed up. “Stay,” he murmured quickly before dashing across the . . . Tea looked around. The woods. They were still in the woods.

They had never left home. He was still home.

He could have cried from relief. Instead Tea closed his eyes and whimpered, brow furrowing as he wondered exactly where Aiden expected him to go without the other’s help. He was so sore, every movement made him wince. When Aiden returned, he had with him . . . .

“You’re kidding, right?” he grumbled at the sight of the branches Aiden intended to use to cover their nudity on their trip back home.

“Shut up,” Aiden declared as he dropped said branches over Tea and covered his lower half. He helped the giant shift onto his side before trying to help him up again. “What did they do to us?”

“We’re grown ass men,” Tea muttered sarcastically as he clung to the other while Aiden pulled him upright, keeping the leaves and twigs covering them. “You know exactly what they did.” He was trying very hard not to think about it. The pain was enough of a reminder. At least he wasn’t stuttering. That was one reprieve. Fortunately he had Aiden’s almost silly attempt at clothing them to scoff at. “If we get chiggers, I’m blaming you.”

“Fucking . . .,” Aiden trailed off into a series of grumbles as Tea slouched against him on unsteady feet. His arms around the other, Aiden did what he could to cover the parts of him that hurt the most. “We had one infestation. What’s another?” His eyes darted around, catching glimpses of what had once been their clothes shredded on the forest floor. Aiden urged him in one direction, uttering, “Let’s get home.”

Home.

Tea was going home.

He sighed happily, squeezing the other as tight as he dared. He had been afraid he wouldn’t see home. He had been afraid he wouldn’t see Aiden. But he was going home. He had Aiden.

Happy hums and purrs played in his head and he knew there were two others who agreed. It was time to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This concludes the explanation of how Skiff, Luster, Seda, and Gemmy become frequent faces amongst the Candle Cult, alternately known as the 'Shallows' section of their story (song by Daughter). Who calls this section by that name? Just me. It's all in my head. Basically, there are some bugs wandering the cult grounds now. Congratulations.


	8. The Infestation of the Candle Cult

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Candle Cult has quite a few Phobias wandering about now. Gemmy and Luster in particular become quite the nuisance to some.

“Tea, what the hell is happening?”

Tea opened his eyes, drowsily staring at the third individual hopping onto the bed with them. Aiden didn’t open his eyes or look, and it was probably best. “Gemmy, what—?”

“Gemmy?!” Aiden almost sat bolt upright only for Tea to fling out his arm and make him lie back down. “The fuck does he want?!”

“He’s just lying do—stop that. Stop!” Tea threw his leg over Aiden’s pair, which were steadily kicking at the Phobia who was circling like a giant dog before settling on the bed. “He’s not doing anything to you.”

“He’s a goddamn bug and he’s in our bed!”

“You want him in my head?”

“I don’t want him anywhere!”

“Keep complaining, pretty boy. I’ll play in your head,” Gemmy threatened, finally curling up at the corner of the bed closest to Tea.

“If the old bat hadn’t taken your soul, I would be investing in the biggest flyswatter you piece of—”

“Aiden. Go to sleep.”

His lover started grumbling, settling closer to Tea’s side and wrapping himself around the larger. With his head on Tea’s shoulder, he griped at Gemmy, “Don’t. Touch. Me.” Then he said a little lighter. “Or Tea either.” Gemmy snickered, but remained curled up in his spot. Tea slid his arm around Aiden’s shoulders, squeezing him closer before rolling slightly to pull him closer. He let out a sigh as they finally started to quiet down again, slipping back to unconsciousness.

When the demons had expressed an interest in leaving his head and wandering the cult, he had hesitated at first. After listening to them grind about in his mind for a solid month, he decided that he would give them their freedom. He could always call them back to him. That was part of the deal after all, and he was still bound to Gemmy. Luster and Gemmy would never be too far from one another, especially as Luster sought to assert his dominance amongst other cultists. It wasn’t hard, or even malicious. Unlike Gemmy, he seemed to acknowledge the fragility of the so-called mortals in comparison to them.

But then he had tried to assert himself with Tapi. It seemed the leader had not taken too fondly to being sat on by a gigantic wingless butterfly. Gemmy and Luster had walked away still living, although they had also walked away with the flames currently burning between the earwig’s horns and between the butterfly’s wing nubs. When Tea had asked her about that, she had very flatly declared, “I didn’t have enough Raid to put up with their shit today,” and left without any further discussion. Tea had been short with the pair of Phobias for quite some time after that. After having Aiden almost forcibly washing Tea’s mouth out with Listerine due to the bugs crawling out of said mouth in front of the human, this seemed like a shitty way to be repaid for allowing them their freedom.

Tea was almost asleep, his breathing just barely evening out as he thought himself in circles. Then he felt another dip in the bed and Aiden exclaimed, “Come the fuck on!”

Tea let out a loud, drawn out sigh before growling, “Luster.”

He didn’t expect to be met with the small, higher voice, “Hi Tea.”

Tea opened one eye to see Luster settling on top of his mate, only he had brought a guest along with him. In his mouth he carried a certain small dragon, who he set down beside Aiden’s and Tea’s legs. “Hey Lee. What’re you doing here?”

“I think I’ve been adopted?” She—he, Tea mentally corrected himself—sounded unsure. Eyeing him and Luster, Tea watched as the butterfly tucked Lee against his side and pressed his antennae to his forehead and cheeks before lying down completely on Gemmy. Lee giggled.

“How?” he dared ask.

“He just picked me up and here I am.”

And Tea was too fucking tired to question it. “Alright. Sleep tight, everyone.”

“Night Tea.”

The last thing Tea heard before dozing off was Aiden grumbling, “Fuck the bugs.”


	9. A Juvenile Moth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lee is not unfamiliar with Phobias, but this silk moth she has not met before.

Lee wasn’t one to be afraid of closets, especially considering the scariest creature to him would never stuff herself in one. However, hearing the scratching and nervous whimpering from within a hall closet was enough to make his hackles raise. He’d about had enough of surprises when it comes to things lurking in shadows. Sinny was a strange case of bad turned good and Luster was a bit too weird at first. He’d gotten used to both. He wasn’t sure he wanted to get used to another.

Lee eased up to the door, a low growl emanating from his throat as his tail raised warningly. When he was able to claw the handle enough to open the door, he threw it open and let out as loud a roar as he was capable in this small form.

And the creature within the closet screeched and yanked down two of the coats from the rack, covering itself completely.

Lee stared at the shaking pile, then ceased his aggressive behavior. It wasn’t fighting back, whatever it was. It was just cowering and hiding. That didn’t seem fun or fair. Lee let out an aggravated sigh. “You can come out.” No one was going to hurt it, unfortunately. They had to behave. Lee had to behave. Stupid orders and rules, he thought as something that looked like a feather poked out from under the two blankets. Then another matching feather. Lee thought he had seen such appendages before, but couldn’t place where. That is, until the creature pulled the blankets from off her head and revealed a face with four eyes and features similar to Luster’s. It was another Phobia. Lee tilted his head, giving a confused, “Where did you come from?” The coats dropped further, revealing a neck and chest covered in what looked like fur. It reminded him of Lola. The Phobia seemed to be covered in the fur, even her arms. Lee watched as the smaller version of his friend pulled the coats to her mouth and started chewing on them loudly. Only then did Lee pick up on what kind of bug it reminded him of. “Are you a moth?” The Phobia’s ears and antennae perked up in recognition of the term. “Where are your wings?” There was a pause, then a quiet unfurling noise as said wings rose up behind her. They were just as fluffy and white as the tufts and poofs that decorated the Phobia’s body. Lee actually grinned, asking quietly, “Do you know a butterfly named Luster?”

Lee jumped back as the Phobia let out a loud, unintelligible screech followed by the high pitched shout, “Luster’s okay?!”

Lee perked up once his ears stopped ringing. Sitting in the hallway now, facing the small moth, he asked, “Want me to go get him?”

The moth started to squeal again, then quieted. It . . . she shoved more coat into her mouth and let out a muffled, “No,” as her antennae drooped. Lee knew enough from Luster’s behavior that she was sad. “I am good. Just knowing.”

Lee’s brow furrowed as he kicked his feet together, pondering the situation. “Why are you here?”

The moth shrank back into the dark closet, hiding her wings once again and continuing to chew holes into the coats. “Skiff told me he’d come back for me. Then I decided not to wait around anymore and . . . I got lost. And . . . I don’t think I want to go back home.”

Though Lee didn’t recognize who Skiff was by name, he acknowledged the desire to not be stranded in one place waiting for someone. He asked, “Why not?”

The moth shrank further. “I’m small.”

Lee squinted. “Won’t you grow?”

“Not fast enough.” It was almost a whimper now.

Lee tilted his head. “Maybe just hang out here for a bit then? Stay till you’re okay to leave and make a new home?”

“That’s what I was thinking.” The moth blinked, then looked at her. “How do you know Luster?”

Lee thought about it. “I think he adopted me.”

Then the moth’s fur ruffled and flattened and ruffled again. “That’s cute. What’s your name?”

“Lee. Yours?”

“Seda.”

Lee grinned. “You going to stay in there the whole time, or do you wanna come out?”

Seda looked around, sitting forward and crawling slightly. She brought the coats with her, peering around the corners and around Lee. She walked more like Gemmy than like Luster, Lee noticed. She crawled as opposed to standing on both feet. When she leaned out further, she looked to Lee. Her antennae reached forward and brushed over Lee’s cheeks. Having grown used to Luster doing the same, Lee didn’t flinch. When the feathered appendages stood back up, Seda whispered, “I can stay here?”

“In the closet or the manor?”

Seda paused. “Both?”

Lee shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

The fur ruffled and flattened again, and Lee knew the answer had made the moth happy. He especially knew this when the moth stopped chewing long enough to make a chuffing noise with her teeth. Lee chuckled.

It seemed they had another bug on their hands.


	10. Warm Bodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gemmy and Luster like experimenting with their new human forms (courtesy of stolen souls). Of course, one of the first things they try must be sex.

Gemmy and Luster came to get used to their secondary forms. The human flesh had never been a suit they could get used to, as they only took the forms of beasts in dreams. Though they had these forms, they retained certain features of their Phobia form. Tongue, eyes, and height all stayed the same when they were in their human skins. At least water didn’t feel quite as strange and disgusting when they touched it in their human forms (granted they still didn’t want to touch it). Human food (so long as it was unsalted) was delicious. They had bugged and bugged and bugged Tea and Aiden to feed them and show them how to act as proper humans. Tea declared they watched them enough they should know already. Aiden declared they needed to put some pants on and walk first.

In fact, that was often the exclamation Aiden threw at them. “Stand up straight and put some goddamn clothes on!” Truly, it was quite the sight to see, Gemmy and Luster struggling with pants for the first time.

Of course, this particular activity they were engaging in didn’t really require pants.

“Stop laughing.” Gemmy did not stop laughing. Luster sat atop the earwig human, wishing his mate’s form had retained his horns so he could grab them and shake the other. Instead Gemmy was lying under him cackling loudly. In all honesty, Luster was trying not to laugh himself. “It’s not funny.”

Gemmy only laughed louder as Luster settled for grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. Finally the words, “It’s so small,” were shaken from his mate’s lips. “I thought it would grow bigger!”

Luster looked down between their naked bodies at the member Gemmy had found so entertaining, then glowered back at his mate. As much as these faces could glower. They felt so different compared to their average forms. Hissing at the earwig, Luster leaned down and bit Gemmy in the neck. That silenced him for about a minute. Then Gemmy was sitting up and growling, red blood sliding from the bite wound. It was a pretty color against olive skin. “If it’s so small, then you won’t feel it I suppose.”

Gemmy wrapped his arms around Luster’s waist, whining against the butterfly’s chest as he started lifting his hips and rubbing them against Luster’s core. He looked up at his mate, three eyes pleading as he tried to emphasize he was only teasing.

Luster snorted, then let out a purr before he ran a hand down Gemmy’s face and neck to his chest. Then he shoved the earwig back down onto the bed as the sound grew louder in his chest. Gemmy thrust his hips up again once on his back, Luster looming over him as Gemmy cooed softly to him. Luster ran a finger down Gemmy’s torso, marveling at its bluntness without a talon and feeling the smooth flesh with his pad. When he ran that same finger up Gemmy’s own member, it was his turn to laugh at how the earwig threw his head back and bucked into Luster’s touch. He then purred, tapping the head of the so-called cock twice and indicating that Gemmy’s was small too.

The earwig pinned him with a glare before loudly declaring, “It’s bigger than yours!”

The butterfly tilted his head to the side, teeth clicking together as he considered the words. “Well, let’s compare.” Luster grasped Gemmy’s hips before lining himself up with the earwig and thrusting. Gemmy panted, hands grabbing at Luster’s head and pulling him down so the earwig’s tongues could slip out and slide along the butterfly’s face lovingly. As Luster moved his hips rapidly against Gemmy’s, his own long tongue slid out and trailed over the earwig’s jaw, tasting his bobbing throat and fluttering heartbeat as it moved down. A heat pooled in his middle and he purred loudly in response to Gemmy’s coos. Then he whispered around his own tongue, “Mine’s bigger.”

Coos turned to snarls and suddenly Gemmy had rolled him onto his back, the butterfly now the one straddled by the earwig. Taken by surprise, Gemmy then snatched Luster’s tongue in his hand before the butterfly could retract it. Tugging it lightly so as not to actually hurt Luster, the earwig encouraged him to give a little more on his tongue’s length. Luster clutched at the bed under them, panting and arching under Gemmy as he let his mate pull the tongue further out of Luster’s mouth. “My beautiful butterfly,” Gemmy growled lowly before bringing Luster’s lengthened tongue over his thigh and down to rub against the butterfly’s own exposed entrance, “fuck yourself.”

Luster’s purr was so loud it vibrated along his tongue, which only made slipping his own tongue inside himself so much more exhilarating. The thick muscle plunged inside of him and he let out another ministration that had Gemmy cooing and sliding their members together again. Luster squirmed as he rode his own tongue, the muscle feeling stretched just as the muscles of his entrance felt stretched. His skin burned where he was stretched and Gemmy’s cock shifting against his had him whimpering. His own tongue thick inside of him, he was actually sad to have Gemmy tugging it back out. Luster was huffing when Gemmy wrapped his tongue around their two members, and Luster started tightening and slicking them both up. He whined again when Gemmy slid from his hold.

Then he let out a piercing cry as Gemmy pushed into him.

\--

Luster hissed as Gemmy moved in him mercilessly, hips snapping against him quickly. The earwig leaned down and left a ruthless bite of his own on a soft patch on Luster’s chest, drawing out a cry from the butterfly. “How’s that for size?” the earwig hummed and bit down again, thrusting wildly into his mate. Pulling his teeth free, he tongued the wounds he’d left and lavished affection on the purring and hissing butterfly. Running his hands up Luster’s sides as he thrust into him, he tried a new angle and apparently hit something that forced Luster to cry out so loudly he almost caved in on Gemmy then and there. It was damn pleasing being the one to force Luster to cry out like this. It had always been worth it to lie beneath the butterfly, but burying himself inside Luster was just as rewarding as having Luster buried in him.

White liquid spilled from Luster’s tip and soon Gemmy felt himself emptying inside the other. Lapping up the blood greedily, Gemmy cooed and spoke softly to his mate as he also tasted salt on that easily penetrated skin. Licking up to Luster’s neck, he followed the salty trails of dampness that coated the butterfly’s tone to his lips. Then he pressed his mouth to Luster’s, doing what he had seen Tea do with many others. The half skinwalker had not liked it with all of those he had done it with, but he seemed to relish in the action with his own mate. Gemmy ran his lips across Luster’s awkwardly, trying to see what was so exciting about the gesture.

Then Luster twisted his head out from under Gemmy’s and declared, “I don’t think you’re doing it right.”

“How do you know?” Gemmy asked petulantly.

“Because it doesn’t feel right.”

“How are you supposed to know what it feels like?” They were reduced to a series of grunts, growls, and hisses, arguing over what the press of lips was supposed to feel like until Gemmy concluded, “I’ll get the tree to show us later.”

Luster hissed in approval, then rolled Gemmy over back onto his back. Rolling the earwig once more, Gemmy huffed as Luster took his usual place on Gemmy’s back. Gemmy hummed and smiled to himself, this action much more familiar to him despite the change of features.

Meanwhile Luster was thinking of asking another person to show him how to kiss.


	11. Silk for Amaya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amaya has a new resident in her household. How she got there, we just don't know.

Amaya gathered up her materials and glared when she looked up and saw Sinny’s gigantic eyes staring at her. “Sinistro!” she shouted, dropping the cloth in her irritation. “You have more manners than to try and sneak up on someone.” Least of all me, she didn’t say aloud but almost did. She had spoken to him of this so many times.

His eyes, which he immediately narrowed upon getting her attention. “Sup horse,” he declared. “I think you have a demon in your closet.”

“That’s nice dear,” she said, bending over to pick up what she had dropped.

Sinny paused, tilting his head. “Um . . . did you not hear me?”

“I heard you. Which closet is it in?”

Sinny’s eyes continued to narrow. “I just said there’s a demon in your closet, and all you do is . . . ask? Which closet?”

With the fabrics in her arms once again, Amaya snorted. “Son, I’ve seen my fair share of things in the past. A demon would not surprise me.” Then her own gaze narrowed. “Why are you looking for a demon in the first place?”

“Lee lost her.”

Her. Interesting, Amaya thought. “Well, if you are willing, show me this infested closet.”

Sinny smiled. “Infested is a good word.” Amaya followed the boggart to the closet he was speaking of. When he opened it, he stepped back. Then he held out his hands and gestured. “See?”

At first, Amaya saw nothing. Then four eyes peaked up at her and she found herself staring down at . . . .

An overgrown silk moth still very much in her childlike chub phase.

And she was munching on a wool sweater when she looked up at Amaya, her feathery antennae twitching. 

Amaya once again dropped the fabric in her arms, a very loud exclamation of how adorable the moth was escaping in the form of a sound. The silk moth responded with an excited coo and a cheery yet quiet, “Hello.”

Before Sinny could protest (though she saw his raised hands) she was picking both moth and sweater up and cradling the new arrival. The silk moth cooed, not at all opposed to being picked up and carried around. Instead of speaking, Amaya cooed back to her and it almost seemed to be a meaningful conversation to any passerby.

Sinny’s last question before Amaya was carrying the silk moth to the kitchen for a bite to eat that wasn’t sweater was, “So Lee’s not getting the bug back, right?”


	12. Warm Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luster demands Aiden teach him how to kiss.

Aiden awoke with a weight on his chest and he was afraid he was having a heart attack. That is, until he opened his eyes and discovered that someone was sitting on him.

Someone nine feet tall with five eyes staring mere inches from his face.

“You f—!” Aiden writhed, ready to push the human butterfly off his torso only to find his arms had been pinned above his head. “Luster!” he shouted, as he and Tea had done any number of times since the bugs had decided to go out exploring.

Just thinking of them crawling out of Tea’s mouth made him sick.

As did the sudden request from the butterfly, “Kiss me.”

To which Aiden responded very quickly, “No!”

Luster hissed and Aiden tensed. His position didn’t budge on the matter, however. He felt . . . awkward. There was a lightness in his stomach that didn’t compliment the rage in his chest at all. Both were overwhelming. He already desperately wanted to go back to sleep, but first Luster had to get the fuck off of him. “Just kiss me,” Luster demanded.

“Why?!”

“To see how it feels.”

“Kiss Gemmy!” That was his . . . mate? Partner? Husband? Right?

“I did, it wasn’t right.”

He sure as hell wasn’t going to get a ‘right’ kiss from Aiden. “Go . . . kiss Tea.” He didn’t mind sacrificing Tea to Luster as much. Luster wasn’t godawful like Gemmy, and he could always just pour Listerine into Tea’s mouth after the happening. The thought of kissing Luster himself . . . .

Aiden shuddered. And Luster retorted, “He’s not here right now.”

Which strangely enough, made Aiden madder. “You were going to?!” It was one thing for him to suggest it, another for Luster to have been thinking of it to begin with. “You son of a—!” He was bucking under the other again, trying to throw him off.

But Luster didn’t budge. “Kiss me and I’ll give you a present.”

“I don’t want a present! I want you to get the fuck off me!” Which fueled Aiden’s writhing.

“What about food? You like food.”

“Not enough to kiss you!” How was he so hard to move? Was he just deadweight?

“Not even cake?”

“Fuck cake!”

Luster hissed, then said aloud, “That sounds like a mess.” Aiden’s only reply was to roar in rage at the other. Why couldn’t Luster just get. Off. Of. Him? “I’m not moving until you kiss me.”

Aiden stopped and glared up at the other in utter disbelief. Did he . . . did he really not realize how fucking creepy this was? It was almost a blessing that he hadn’t done this to Tea, Tea might have lost it. That just made him angrier. Seething, his glower intensified as he hissed, “I am not kisssssssssing you.” His fangs showed and his tongue flicked as he said it. He felt his claws in his fists. He was pissed.

“Please?”

He was persistent, and Aiden just wanted to go back to sleep. No matter how pissed and ready to fight he was, he just wanted to sleep. His body was heavy and he was ready for a good, long rest. He hadn’t gotten that rest the night before, so he’d intended to sleep today away.

Not be woken up a few hours later to find Luster sitting on his chest.

His frustration mounting only to burn out in favor of exhaustion, Aiden grit his teeth. He wondered briefly if he could go to sleep in spite of the Phobia sitting on him. He . . . he doubted it. But he was tempted to try as opposed to just letting Luster bully him into this.

“Why?” he asked again.

“Because I want to.”

Aiden snorted, but felt no humor. All he felt was tired and irritated. Just . . . get it over with maybe? Then sleep? Then . . . hell no. He wasn’t doing this. He couldn’t do this. What a fucking . . ., “Fine.” Luster let out a loud purr and released Aiden’s hands, only for Aiden to smack his hand across the bug’s face and stop him from leaning any closer just yet. “But you don’t tell any fucking body and you sure as fuck keep your tongue in your goddamn mouth.” Luster cooed. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” Luster murmured against his palm.

Only then did Aiden remove his hand.

And just like that, Luster’s lips were on his.

Aiden couldn’t lie, the fucker was clumsy as hell. His mouth started out in one place, but moved to another and it was sloppy. Not that Aiden was an expert or anything, but this had to be the worst kiss he’d ever encountered. Pushing Luster up slightly, he snapped, “You’re shitty at this.”

Luster made a small pouting noise. “That’s why you’re supposed to teach me.”

Aiden opened his eyes enough to glare again. “That’s not what you asked, asshole.” But it was too late. He was locked into this. At least, that’s what his tired brain declared. “Alright, pay the fuck attention. I’m only doing this one more time.”

Luster purred, then Aiden pressed his lips to the Phobia’s again.

This time, Luster was still. His lips hardly moved. Aiden did the moving for him, slowly guiding him into a soft and slow kiss. It was still awkward, kissing someone not to kiss them but to show them how to kiss. It did absolutely nothing for Aiden.

Until Luster started kissing back.

And he learned just how quick a study the Phobia was. 

His eyes shot wide as Luster suddenly pressed him into the bed, mouth moving much harder and faster now. Going stiff, his face and neck grew hot as he was sure they became tinted with red. He let out a disgruntled noise, but could neither twist his head nor move out of the kiss in any way. He started to shout against Luster’s mouth, fists now clenched in the material of the butterfly’s shirt.

Then the Phobia’s palms clasped his face.

His cool . . . hands . . . .

A tongue brushed his lips lightly, just enough to tease.

Aiden’s stomach was fluttering out of control and his grip loosened. His eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth continued to be assaulted. He moaned . . . .

And just like that, Luster was pushing off of him and running out the door.

Leaving Aiden hot . . . pissed . . . and . . . .

Very pissed.

Glaring at the ceiling, he knew he wasn’t going the fuck to sleep after that.


	13. A Playful Dragonfly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skiff finds himself in the company of some very friendly cultists.

He’d left Seda in a closet and told her to stay, and what did she do? Not stay. Grubs had to grow up sometime, so he let her go. If they found each other again, then he’d be sure to give her the human gesture he called a ‘noogie’ and reprimand her for scurrying off. Luster had always hated noogies. Never stopped Skiff from giving him a few when he thought the butterfly was being dumb.

Skimming across the lake, he let the water just brush the tips of his wings. Phobias didn’t tend to like water, so he didn’t dip in the way he had often seen bugs that looked like him do. Tilting his head this way and that, he circled a few times before rocketing over the forest again. With no Seda or Luster to look after and no Gemmy to track down, he was on his own in this new world. Well, not so much new as . . . less . . . dreamlike. He’d seen the world in the dreams of mortals (and even seen other worlds in the minds of those not of this world). However, as he had always suspected, the dream realm paled in comparison to this one.

His antennae flat against his head, they stood up almost immediately upon landing on a strange looking house. He clicked and cooed and hummed, lowering his head to allow the appendages to taste the roof. The home was unlike any he had seen in dreams. It almost looked grown by the forest itself. That made no sense. Forests could not think to build houses, creatures built houses. Perhaps it was a dam made by . . . very big beavers.

Wings settling after twitching a few more times, he continued to crawl across the roof and investigate via his antennae. He clicked and purred to himself, noting all the different tastes and smells. So much he’d never encountered before. Very different kinds of mortals resided in this home.

Oh.

Some were indeed home.

He went still, pressing himself down on the roof and quieting as he listened. “Something’s on the roof,” one declared.

“Are you sure?” voiced a second.

“Can’t you hear it?”

A pause. “No.” Skiff kept still, listening intently. “Maybe it’s a tree?”

“No,” the first griped. “It sounded specifically like someone crawling on the roof.”

“Hold on you two,” said a third voice. There was movement. Skiff was utterly still, listening to these strange mortals. They smelled strange. They were certainly not the types of mortals he often encountered in dreams. Mortals varied so much, he had given up keeping track of them all. His revery was interrupted then, a voice clearly heard from off the side of the roof. The third individual had stepped outside. “You do not have to hide, you know. You can come down and greet us.” Skiff went stiff. Was it talking to him? Surely no. How did it know . . . ? “This forest is mine. We know you’re up there. We mean no harm.” Be still Skiff, the dragonfly told himself. This was still a strange world. Mortals still feared what they did not know. If only he could change shape in this realm. “I would very much like to partake in your company, if you would join me down here.”

Wings twitching, Skiff pushed up slightly and heard the gasped exclamation from the second voice, “It’s moving.”

“Should we tell it to leave?” said the first.

“Don’t be rude. I don’t think he bears any ill will.” Then the third called up to him, “As I said, we mean no harm. Please?” Skiff lifted himself up on all six hands and feet. He crawled slowly at first, twisting his head from side to side to take a gander at his surroundings and eventually catch sight of the three waiting for him on the ground. As he edged closer, his wings fluttered and he clicked at the . . . very strange creatures looking back at him. “There you are,” said a white-haired . . . spirit of some sort. He had glowing veins, Skiff mused. Perhaps he could inspect them further. The spirit continued to speak as Skiff crawled closer to the edge of the roof, poking his head over. “Aren’t you quite a spectacle up there?”

“Understatement,” murmured an orange eared mortal who stared blankly at the wall. Skiff tilted his head to look at him with the other eye. This one was blind. He could tell just by looking at him.

Therefore he did not take offense at the clear retort on his appearance. These creatures were a very strange bunch before his gorgeousness, he must admit.

“Can you speak?” asked the white-haired spirit.

Skiff didn’t hesitate to answer. “Yep yep yep.”

A baring of teeth. He believed that was meant to be a smile from the spirit. “I am Leland. This is my home. May I ask your name?”

“Skiff.”

“Is that a name?” asked the final individual, the second person he had heard speak. He almost looked like the mortals Skiff was more familiar with only . . . .

Feathers.

He knew what this creature was!

“Siren!” Skiff screeched before leaping off the roof and landing before the three. They backed away immediately, startled by his heavy landing made soft only because of his wings. He immediately approached the siren. He didn’t stop at the noisy protests or the other’s hands being raised. He automatically clasped the siren’s head with both palms and burst out with, “Brother!” It had been so long since he had seen the dream of a siren. Since he had watched them sing sailors into rocks in their sleep. Yes, he had watched them do this even as they slept. It had been beautiful.

The siren was beautiful.

And scared.

“Maybe you should back off of him a bit. He’s still pretty easily spook--,” the orange one began but was cut off by the siren.

“It’s fine. I think . . . he knows me.” The siren looked confused. “Though I’m . . . not sure how.”

Skiff’s antennae ran over the siren’s face and he felt a sort of sadness wash over him. Then he murmured, “Nope nope nope.” He patted the siren’s cheeks, then released him. “I know sirens. Sing pretty.” He sat back on his haunches and observed the three, which lowered him slightly. Otherwise he towered over them.

The siren’s cheeks turned a slight pink as he introduced himself. “I’m Nicoli. And this is--”

“Jinx.” The orange one named Jinx folded his arms. “Do you mind if I ask . . . why you were on the roof?”

“Landed there.”

They looked to one another as if that were a reasonable answer. Then Leland stepped close and asked, “Would you like something to eat?”

Skiff perked up. “Dreams?” he asked excitedly. He could use a good bit of nourishment.

Jinx stiffened, then asked hesitantly, “What exactly are you?”

His answer was as short as the others had been. “Phobia.”

None of them seemed to know what that meant. He was alright with that. Dream demons such as himself thrived on a low radar. Leland gestured for them all to follow him inside, however. “We’ll see what we can get you, Skiff. Maybe you can tell us where you came from.”

Skiff stood upright and had to duck his head and tuck his wings to enter the home. Just feeling the air with his antennae . . . .

He could tell he was going to like this place.


	14. Warm Tongues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A response to Luster's having "tricked" Aiden into kissing him (in collaboration with Aiden's mun).

The rage of the incident with Luster late yesterday didn’t sink in fully until Aiden was awake and sitting up in bed in the middle of the next night. He had been sitting there for a few hours with the only sound of Tea’s soft breaths as he slept, and the ‘occasional’ noises from the hustle and bustle of the nocturnal cult farther down the layers of mansion. With his mind still working on deciphering just what had happened, the leftover thoughts left him with only one feeling. Which was anything but happy.

And of all the fucking times, neither bug was in sight.

He must have still been half asleep when he got out of bed and started stalking through the manor. The cult still scared the living daylights out of him in the night, but the rage overrode his concern for running into anyone other than the butterfly who had tricked him into kissing him. No, he hadn’t really been tricked . . . Aiden still felt that way. He still felt violated.

And embarrassed.

And hot . . . .

He was livid. Stumbling down the hall growling with a quiet hiss on his tongue, he almost yelled for the bug to appear. But then he did. The butterfly in human form rounded the corner as if on cue, murmuring as he pushed a chunk of some food (probably junk food, he tended to like junk food) into his mouth. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?” were the first words out of Luster’s mouth.

Aiden couldn’t stand how nonchalant the question was.

“You pissed me off!” Aiden bellowed louder than he intended and before Luster could react Aiden grabbed the bug in human skin and twisted him back, shoving him into the wall with a vice like grip; black talons barely cutting into soft skin. It was unusual to Aiden for the missing touch of chitin that usually came along with Phobias. The bug hissed, snapping the smaller man’s attention back onto just what he had come to do. Luster, astonished at the sudden violence to the point of dropping whatever junk he was holding and clamping his palms down on Aiden’s wrists. “Thought that was real fucking cute, didn’t ya?! Let’s see how you like it!”

Luster started to hiss again, but then Aiden’s lips were on his and the grip on his arms went loose. Aiden, forced Luster back into the wall by placing open palms on his chest, the smaller deepened the kiss, too tired to hold back and too angry to just let Luster get away with leaving him like he had done. He craned his neck to keep their mouths locked, Luster so much taller than him (taller than Tea). Pushing his tongue into Luster’s mouth, the bug was still and responding stiffly to the kiss. His lack of experience showed, but soon he was gripping Aiden’s shoulders and pulling him roughly against him. Aiden’s whole face, neck and shoulders were burning from the action, burning from the touch, he continued to push Luster back into the wall, body hot and pressing as close as it could as his lips trailed down along Luster’s jaw before biting and drawing a small bead of blood.

But as soon as Luster moaned Aiden had gotten up specifically to share with him, Aiden pulled back and pushed the butterfly back into the wall.

Then he stalked all the way back to bed and flopped in beside Tea. There he curled up in the arms of the skinwalker and huffed. Still hot all over, he felt like he had sufficiently embarrassed the butterfly.

Who, unbeknownst to him, had sunk down into a seated position in the hallway in a state of shock from the assault.

He did not know what the heat in his human flesh was but . . . he thought . . . .

He liked it.


	15. A Hint of Jealousy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gemmy picks a fight with Aiden. Aiden doesn't know why, but he then proceeds to wrestle him oblivious to the fact that Luster is watching and judging.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Aiden received nothing but a yowl in return as Gemmy sat on his back. He had been productive for once, doing some laundry and cleaning some old dishes. He had actually been busy doing something.

Then the bug had jumped on him.

Aiden could tolerate a lot of things, it seemed. He could tolerate living with the cult that had scared the life out of him at several points in time. He could tolerate Tea’s teething and scratching at random points in the night. He could tolerate Tea’s lack of nourishment to an extent, and he could tolerate his never-ending nightmares. He could tolerate being forced to play nice with the bugs who had almost kidnapped Tea and kept him from Aiden forever. He tolerated all of this for Tea. He loved Tea more than anything.

But the fucking earwig was pushing it and needed to be taught a lesson.

Throwing his hands back, he latched onto Gemmy’s horns. When he did, he used all the strength he had been neglecting to put the bug in his place.

\--

Luster heard his mate yowling from across the common room he was currently scouting out. With a hiss, he ran through doorways in search of Gemmy. When he finally found him, he had to stop himself from just yanking the person pinning him off of the earwig.

Frozen, he eyed the human currently straddling Gemmy’s back. Aiden’s legs pinned the Phobia’s arms, his palms clasped tight on both horns. He was sitting on Gemmy in a manner that the earwig’s steadily clicking tail was trapped under their bodies. Gemmy was so loud and frustrated at being pinned that when he spotted Luster just staring at the situation, his howl grew in volume. 

Shaken from his staring, Luster let out a loud and angry hiss. Aiden didn’t flinch. He simply looked up at the butterfly and snarled back, “Control your bitch!”

“Who’re you calling bitch, bitch?!” Gemmy snapped loudly.

Aiden leaned on the horns, pushing Gemmy’s face into the floor. “You fucking forgot who first captured you, bug.”

That would be me, the butterfly thought but did not say. No one else had been able to catch and hold Gemmy. Until now . . . .

And as Aiden released Gemmy, stepping off of him and resuming whatever activities the earwig had interrupted, Luster caught himself watching the human with new interest. Fives eyes followed him, tracking his movements like he was learning the other’s weaknesses and strengths. Following him with his gaze and marking down mentally what he could learn just from watching.

Gemmy uncurled from the ball he’d been put in on the floor, getting up and starting back towards Aiden with a snarl. Luster hissed, the earwig spinning to face his mate. Aiden tensed as he turned to watch the two Phobias converse in this manner, Gemmy yowling that the fight wasn’t over and Luster hissing that it was because he said so.

The earwig lost all interest in Aiden. Crawling over to Luster, his three eyes locked on the butterfly, Luster could feel himself being analyzed by the other. Even without antennae of any sort, Gemmy had always been overly observant. His tail started clicking, watching Luster as he slowly rose up off the ground to stand and meet Luster’s height. When Luster’s gaze flitted from Gemmy to Aiden to Gemmy again, Gemmy’s tail ceased its clicking and the earwig’s expression, while unchanged in human eyes, shifted just enough for Luster to read that he was shocked.

And then pissed.

Gemmy yowled in Luster’s face and Luster hissed back just as loudly. Out of the corner of Luster’s eye he saw Aiden jump at the outburst. Gemmy dropped to the floor again and stalked off in a huff. Luster’s hissing dropped to a low decibel as he followed his mate, begrudgingly leaving the human to his own devices.

Considering that Gemmy had just observed Luster’s shift in interests firsthand that had gone a little too well. Now if the earwig could just listen to him (which had always been a horrendous task), maybe he could prevent his mate from plaguing Tea’s own mate with nightmares.


	16. A Modest Proposal?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aiden couldn't for the life of him figure out why Luster was acting funny. He thinks he has just made an enemy out of the butterfly.

Luster had been acting funny lately. He watched Aiden. A lot. It was intimidating. He didn’t like it. “Go away,” he growled. And usually Luster listened. He left without a word. Maybe he’d laugh, but that was the extent. Just a laugh and off he went. This time however, Luster did not. His antennae reached out to brush over Aiden’s face and he ducked out of their path. “Stop that! What do you want?” The butterfly started hissing, and Aiden grew tense. Okay. He had beat one bug’s ass. He’d beat another. “I don’t know what your problem is, but cut it out. Not putting up with all your shit just ‘cause I’m stuck with you.” The whole time he spoke, the antennae reached for his face. He continued to duck and maneuver out of their way, only they were persistent. When he finally gave up and realized Luster wasn’t going to stop until he touched Aiden with them, Aiden let out a low snarl and allowed them to press to his cheeks. “Happy?” The butterfly cooed then, feather light caresses from the antennae tickling his face as they continued to run up and down his jaw, chin, lips, forehead. His furrowed brow turned into a glower the longer this went on. After a few moments of enduring the appendages on his face, Aiden grumbled, “Are you done yet?”

“You’re funny,” the Phobia murmured deeply.

Aiden’s glare intensified. “You’re not. Get off.” The butterfly laughed, and Aiden was so hoping that meant he was leaving soon. He learned that that was not the case as soon as he was tackled to the ground. Aiden’s back hit the floor and he let out a loud grunt that doubled as a shout. “What the—?!” His immediate reaction was to drive a fist into Luster’s jaw before he could utilize those hands to pin him down. The butterfly’s head jerked back as Aiden started to push up, the Phobia struggling to straddle his kicking legs. “Hey!” Aiden yelled as Luster managed to grab and pin one arm. The fuck was the bug doing? “Get off!” Aiden drew one leg up high enough he was able to place his foot on the giant creature and pushed back. Luster clung to the one arm, trying to seize the other even as Aiden was driving him back. It wasn’t until claws dug into Aiden’s skin that he really snapped. Eyes flaring and fangs bared, Aiden yelled, “I said get off!”

He brought up his second foot and used both to kick the Phobia back. When Luster landed on his back, he launched forward and took his place above the other before decking him a second time. His face and neck now red with rage, he started to punch again when Luster brought two of his arms up to cover his face. The other two grabbed Aiden’s wrists to hold him off. Aiden shouted. It wanted to fight before, why not now? Didn’t want to have its ass handed to it?

Then someone grabbed the back of Aiden’s shirt and neck. In an instant, Aiden was lifted off Luster and thrown against the neighboring wall. He felt his back crack from the impact, the wind knocked out of him as he landed on his stomach. When he looked back up, some of his anger had drained.

And Gemmy was looming over top of his mate and yowling at Aiden.

Aiden started to yell back at the earwig, but Luster patted Gemmy’s face with all four hands before performing a similar action with his antennae as he had done with Aiden. Gemmy continued his vocalizing a moment longer. Then turned towards Luster and snapped his jaws in agitation. Luster hissed in response, but Gemmy stepped off and stalked away snarling and snapping.

Luster got back to his feet slowly, Aiden tensing and waiting to be attacked again. Instead, the butterfly gave him one last look and declared, “See you in your dreams,” before following after his mate.

“Whatever,” Aiden snapped back to no one in particular. But in all honesty, he had absolutely no idea what that threat would entail.


	17. Honeyed Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luster's revenge on Aiden for denying his "proposal" is fairly explicit.

Gemmy’s palms clasped Tea’s wrists as the Phobia thrust up into his naked body, his other set of hands holding the half skinwalker’s hips in place. Tea’s eyes rolled to the back of his head as Luster pressed to his front, tongue leaving his mouth to stretch down between their bodies. It wrapped around Tea’s cock and began slowly pumping as Gemmy’s tongues and fangs ran over the back of Tea’s neck. Two of the butterfly’s hands grasped Gemmy’s sides, the others keeping Tea’s thighs spread perfectly to accommodate the earwig.

Tea collapsed between the two quickly, the Phobias laughing at how easily overwhelmed he was. They purred and crooned and watched each other over the half skinwalker’s shoulder as they used the humanoid’s body up. Whimpers spilled from Tea’s mouth, hands clenching as Gemmy pulled out and sheathed himself, strings of seed following and dripping from Tea’s entrance. Sliding out from under him and lowering the half skinwalker so he was lying on the ground, Gemmy continued to pin his wrists and lick the sweat and gathering tears from Tea’s face. The butterfly’s tongue receded from the still hard cock and he purred above Tea, nuzzling Gemmy’s face before returning his attention to their current plaything. Luster held Tea’s thighs and hips up, his own member emerging before being driven into the humanoid. Tea let out a loud keen, back arching as Luster moved in him without mercy. He gazed up at Gemmy, biting his lips and whimpering helplessly. The earwig laughed again, turning to the other Phobia and declaring, “He likes it,” with interest.

Luster purred, tongue slipping out to glide over Tea’s lips before plunging into his mouth. Tea choked and whined again as he lay with the butterfly fucking him while the earwig’s seed added to the lubrication.

It was with the image of Tea like this that Aiden woke up with. Throwing his hand out, he gripped his partner beside him and heaved air into his lungs. Sweating, he covered his face with his other hand as he heard Luster in his head laughing at him. At least, he thought he had heard Luster laughing at him.

Rage filled him at the images Luster had been evoking in his mind every night since their fight. He snarled. “That fucking . . .,” a myriad of other curses spilled from his mouth and he knew the laugh he heard in the other room was the butterfly’s. He just knew it.

Sitting up, he dragged both hands down his face and continued growling. Tea rolled over towards him, groaning tiredly and dropping a lazy palm on Aiden’s thigh before burying his lips against the former Puppeteer’s side to kiss his revealed skin. Aiden relaxed as the other curled against him and asked, “You okay?”

“I fucking hate your infestation,” he spat out before he could stop himself.

Tea sighed. “I know.”

“No, you don’t understand. I fucking hate them.”

Tea’s eyes fluttered open, giving him a glazed look. “Nightmares, huh?” He closed his eyes again and snuggled closer. “What about?”

Aiden paused for a noticeably long time. Then he murmured, “Nothing . . . bad. Too bad. Don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep.”

Tea’s brow furrowed. “But it’s bothering you.”

Aiden’s whole face flushed as his body got hot. With a shaking palm, he patted Tea’s hair. The skinwalker purred. “Nothing bad.” Nothing the kid needed to know. Although the images . . . they had him growling again, but for a . . . very different reason. “Sleep.”

Tea grunted, but didn’t argue.

This was Luster’s revenge for him beating the butterfly in a fight: overly explicit visions of what the bugs could (but damn well knew better than to actually try to) do to his lover. Aiden shivered as he pictured Tea’s face in the throes of pleasure. Yes, he had seen Tea like that before but . . . also not quite like that.

And he didn’t want the fucking bugs of all creatures anywhere near Tea when he looked that . . . vulnerable.

He was hot. He was hot all over. Hot and angry. So, so angry.

And he didn’t know whether it was because he wanted Tea looking at him that way or wanted Luster to fuck off somewhere.

Flopping back down in bed and exhaling loudly, he realized he was lying to himself. He very much wanted . . . .

Both.


	18. Honeyed Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tea wasn't expecting to be tackled upon waking Aiden from the dreams he has been plagued with lately.
> 
> But he won't complain.

Tea had been awoken by many things in his life, the majority of those things not so pleasant. One such instance involved waking to immediately jump out of bed and break up a fist fight between Aiden and Gemmy. Another between Aiden and Luster. He was beginning to think the nightmares they were giving his lover were a bit more critical than he had originally thought. When he pressed the three of them for information though, he got nothing.

And what he woke up to this time was . . . well it was certainly a surprise.

The first thing he noticed was that the blankets and pillows had been shoved off their bed. The second was that their bed was moving. The final thing that cued him something was going on was the very . . . incredibly . . . erotic moans spilling from the mouth of his partner.

Tea rolled over, brow furrowed and still dazed from sleep. "Aiden?" When his eyes finally landed on the man writhing beside him, he was so taken aback by his state that he almost choked on surprise. Then his face grew hot, purple coloring his cheeks as he watched the ravenlord's suggestive movements and gyrations. A growl of his own spilled from his mouth at the way Aiden clutched the sheets and twisted his head back and forth. Tea almost wanted to keep watching. He almost didn't want to disturb him from this dream, it was providing such a spectacle. But Tea knew Aiden. He knew he'd want to be woken up from this. In the back of Tea's mind he cursed Luster. Tea never actually received a straight answer on what dreams the butterfly sent Aiden, but he was starting to get a feeling he knew. Gently placing a palm on the man's sweaty chest, he shook Aiden awake while calmly saying his name.

The absolute last thing he expected to happen was for Aiden to grab Tea and roll him onto his back, eyes wide open and staring intensely at him. Tea's yelp was drowned out as the other seized his wrists and pinned them above his head before mashing his lips to Tea's. If Tea thought he'd been hot before, he had never been so wrong. He was on fire, Aiden's desire penetrating him everywhere he touched and making his eyes roll back and his head spin. And God, Aiden was touching him everywhere. Tea's thighs hugged his hips, his hips rutted furiously against Tea's groin, his stomach and chest pressed and brushed against Tea's as he rocked against him in a mad bid for contact, his mouth nipped and teased and sucked and utterly wrecked Tea's and Tea just--

The noise he made was not human.

Fists clenched and body rising to meet Aiden's, he felt a tremor of fear as his nerves brushed on the frustration in the other. With Tea whimpering into his mouth, Aiden pulled back and assessed the cultist's purpled face and neck. He looked so angry, but . . . Tea wasn't as afraid as perhaps he should be. Even when the other snarled, "Keep. Saying. My name." It was almost an enraged command as his hands left Tea's wrists and started immediately yanking the larger man's underwear to his ankles.

"Aiden, what's going--?"

The other's hand flew up to grip Tea's jaw, effectively silencing him. Tea froze, the fear trying to wake again only to be replaced with an arousal he wasn't sure was his or Aiden's. "Only. My name." Both. Definitely both.

Tea lay naked, legs shaking and hands balling around the remaining sheet on the bed as the drawer opened and slammed. The noise was so loud and shocking it almost snapped Tea out of his arousal, but he needed only to focus on Aiden and . . . he just . . ., "Aiden." 

The other's grin was nearly monstrous and Tea really, really wanted to know what it was he had been dreaming for him to grip Tea so roughly and demand he say only his name and nothing else. He wanted to know until Aiden shoved slicked fingers into him and his thoughts were scattered to the winds. Tea's back arched and he screamed the smaller man's name, clutching the bedsheets hard and crying out as the other moved in him impatiently. That was fine. Tea could handle impatient movements, he'd be fine.

But the more he screamed Aiden's name the more the other wrecked his body. Tea grew so loud he turned his face away and refused to look at the other as he bit his lip. The. Aiden's hand gripped his jaw again and made him look up at him. "You will show me everything." The hand left Tea's entrance and he nearly cried at the almost painful absence. "Every scream." He heard Aiden slick himself up and he fought to keep his body from tensing. "Every moan." Aiden's hands moved to grip Tea's hips. "Every breath." Tea's eyes went wide as Aiden lined himself up with Tea. "Every twist of your features," Aiden groaned as Tea stared up at him with a newfound need, "will be mine."

Tea didn't just scream his name as Aiden immediately started pounding into him. He howled it. Every cell in his body was wailing for Aiden, begging for this brand new show of affection and possession. His body gave over to Aiden's without protest, arching and bending and meeting his every thrust, bite, kiss, caress. Aiden's nails dragged over his skin and Tea couldn't even flinch. He just screamed his name. He screamed it until the movements were so overwhelming he was hoarse and sweating and writhing against the other with his eyes crossed and his mouth agape with a need to say the name again and again.

Tea came shortly after Aiden did and he went limp beneath the other. As Aiden continued to press kisses all along his face, Tea was stuck in a mind numbing haze. He didn't want to move. As soon as he did, he would feel the damage. He wanted to remain in the haze a while longer, drinking in the display of ownership the other had just put on.

That's what this had been: a claiming.

Tea should be ashamed and upset.

But in all honesty, he had never been happier to belong to anyone.


	19. Wet Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jinx has quite the nighttime experience with Skiff.

The dragonfly was strange. Jinx could readily admit that. He was as strange as the bugs Tea often talked of living in his head.Granted, they didn’t tend to live in his head much anymore, but Jinx could swear the dragonfly was living in his.

He was overly sensitive. Every touch was sparking several nerves to life within him. There was a palm in his hair, massaging the bases of his ears intermittently. Another palm was rubbing his shoulder blades, keeping him from tensing them. A mixture of moans and groans flooded his throat and spilled from his mouth. A third hand was sliding from his chest,which was pressed to the ground while the rest of him was up in the air, moving to wrap around his throbbing nether region and massage that as well. Jinx was so utterly relaxed throughout his entire body.

Save for the member twisting inside him.

Save for the hips thrusting against him.

Skiff whirred and cooed and hummed above him, his fourth palm dragging through the fur on Jinx’s legs. He heard the dragonfly’s wings fluttering wildly as Jinx continued his broken iterations in response to the overwhelming stimulus. Skiff was so thick inside him, thick and long. Jinx was on the verge of tears, not because he was in pain but because he was going numb in some places and it left tingling sensations in the wake of the numbing. The tingling was so uncomfortable and yet so pleasant. Stars lit and burst in the darkness of his vision and he was so loud. He was so loud in his own ears and he was so, so aroused.

If that wasn’t enough, the idea that Skiff was reading his mind was. He simply had to think the words ad Skiff was doing it. Harder. Faster. Slower. Deeper.

Pull.

Push.

Scratch.

Bite.

“Fuck!” Jinx shouted as he felt Skiff’s teeth and talons in his skin. He cried out, struggling for air. He wanted more. He wanted it all. It was too much and not enough all at once. It was dizzying. His head was spinning, his mouth was watering, his tongue was too thick, his moans too loud.

He woke up with the pillow between his teeth and the sheets wet between his legs.

In fact the whole bed was wet with sweat.

Jinx lay still for a moment, heaving and spent and body sore but knowing--simply knowing--it had been a dream. A wild, crazy, relentless, restless dream.

One he wished were real.

He whined, but then silenced as he felt feather-like appendages dragging over his cheeks and forehead. He trembled, shivering at the touch of the antennae he had grown used to recently. He then very breathlessly asked, “Did you do that?”

“Do what?” Skiff asked in return.

Instead of answering the question, Jinx felt himself grow flush. He instead asked a different question, “Did you see that?”

“Nope nope nope.” Well, that was a relief. That is, until Skiff asked, “What is that?”

“Huh?” Jinx asked, confused.

“That I’m supposed to see.”

Jinx was confused, suspicious, and above all else tired. Instead of engaging in this conversation, he pulled the pillow he had drooled on from under his head to cover his ears with it. “Nevermind.” He needed to sleep off the embarrassment of the previous dream anyway.

And hopefully have another that was similar.


	20. Honeyed Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth of Aiden's new found possessiveness of Tea is revealed in a rather awkward (hot) way.

The morning after Aiden’s claiming, Tea was warm all over. He didn’t start to feel self-conscious until he heard Gemmy and Luster laughing, hissing, clicking outside the bedroom door and somehow knew they were laughing at them.

Then Tea was suddenly feeling the slickness between his legs and the embarrassment kicked in. Slipping out of bed, he threw on some sweats and headed for the shower. He brushed past the Phobias on the way out, Luster even commenting, “Fun night?” The question was accompanied by a snicker from Gemmy.

And the unamused, “Haha,” from Tea.

Once in the shower, Tea was scrubbing. The hot water poured over his body as he thought back on what had happened. He shuddered in spite of the heat of the bathroom, which steamed up the tile surfaces in a matter of minutes. Placing his palms on either side of the too low shower head, he closed his eyes and sighed as water sprayed him. Last night would have been much more enjoyable if Gemmy and Luster hadn’t been at the door waiting to sneer at him. He flushed purple. The night before had still been . . . .

He purred, the sound reverberating off the walls. Fuck the bugs. That was an amazing . . . amazing experience. Shaking his head, he ducked under the water to rinse his scalp.

And almost slipped and fell when the door of the bathroom started to creak open. “Excuse—!”

“It’s me.” That shut him up immediately. Aiden. What was . . . why was . . . Aiden never interrupted his showers, what was he—?

The curtain pulled back and Tea about sputtered. “What are you—?”

“Come here and shut up.” Just like that, Tea was spun about and pressed against the wall adjacent. His eyes were wide and the wall was warm against his skin as Aiden pressed his body against Tea’s. His eyes fluttered shut as his lips, still sore from the night before, were attacked once again. Aiden’s naked hips were suddenly grinding against his and moans spilled from his lips. He went from moderately hard to thick and throbbing as Aiden’s own member pressed against his. Tea dragged his palms over Aiden and he could feel the frustration lingering just beneath the surface of the other’s lust. He started to ask, but then Aiden’s mouth ceased its rough attack on his specifically to say, “Unless you’re going to scream my name again.”

Disorientation didn’t even begin to cover the feelings Tea was experiencing. The night before came back to him clear as day as Aiden again flipped him about and positioned him so that he was bent over slightly and his ass was against his member. Tea bit his lip as lust and frustration and residual possessiveness and everything he had felt during last night’s escapade came flooding back into him tenfold. His knees were wobbling as Aiden held him up by his hips and pushed in without preparation or warning.

Tea did in fact scream his name.

Several times.

Aiden was relentless, rocking into Tea roughly, hastily. His own groans and hisses resonated throughout the restroom alongside Tea’s myriad animal noises. Talons dug into Tea’s hips as the stretch burned only slightly, the skinwalker turning his head so that he could sink his teeth into his forearm. The bite hurt, he tasted his own blood, but he successfully muffled the terrible amounts of noise he couldn’t control no matter how hard he tried. Stars speckled his vision along with black dots, all the while Aiden filled him. Filled his ears with possessive mutterings, filled his throat with cries of Tea’s own, filled his heart with layers upon layers of emotion, filled his eyes with spots and tears, filled him—

Aiden’s pace slowed and deepened as he yanked Tea’s head back by the hair, tearing Tea’s bloodied mouth from his arm. Knowing what he was going to ask, Tea instantly cried out, “Aiden.”

“Louder.”

“Aiden!”

“Louder!”

“AIDEN.”

With each cry, the former Puppeteer pounded harder. Tears were streaking down Tea’s face, blood streaming from the teeth marks on his arm, and he felt so full, so stretched, so sore from the thrusting and the fucking—

He didn’t want to stop.

He couldn’t take anymore, but he didn’t want to stop.

He wanted to be Aiden’s and he wanted to be here and he wanted to keep at this until he couldn’t scream anymore.

He came with a force that almost knocked him off his feet. Aiden’s own orgasm followed soon after, and all the cleanliness Tea had worked so hard to achieve was sullied by round two of this possessive version of his lover.

The two slid down in the shower, lying in the tub with the smaller resting on top of Tea’s back. Aiden’s face was buried against the back of Tea’s neck and shoulder, arms wrapped limply around the taller as Tea hid his face in his forearms. Their bodies stuck to the sides and bottom of the tub as they let the now lukewarm water wash over both of them. Both huffed as the steam of the shower and their activities hung heavy on them. Tea’s mind was a fog itself.

But he had enough sense to ask, “Ssmuch as m’enjoying this,” he huffed, “what brought this on?”

If anything could have shaken Tea out of his blissed out state harder, it probably would have involved physical violence. As such, the grumpy response, “Nothing,” was enough to do the trick.

Tea was quiet for a moment, pondering the word as the frustration in Aiden grew to overshadow this particular instance. Tea thought perhaps he should be quiet and simply let this be, savor the moment and the still present feeling of having the other inside him. He shivered and moaned under Aiden, but . . . .

The other didn’t respond.

He seemed to be . . . thinking. Of what? Tea wondered.

With another harsh exhale Tea turned the shower off with his foot, then waited for Aiden to get off of him so they could start making their way out of the tub to towel off. Bodies dripping, he ignored the fact that they were both technically still dirty and focused on the fact Aiden wouldn’t budge. Even when Tea shifted he didn’t budge. “Aiden?”

“Hm?”

Tea paused, unsure how exactly he was supposed to ask. He didn’t want to ruin the moment, the feeling of satisfaction that was so rare for him to have. Still, he took a deep breath and decided to go with the first thought that came to his mind. “What’s gotten into you?” No answer. “You seem . . . upset.” Still no answer. Was . . . was the other taking something out on him? God don’t let that be the case. Tea didn’t want this to be ruined for him in that way.

Aiden still didn’t answer and Tea was ready to shove him off. He felt his throat closing. Jesus Christ Tea, don’t you dare cry, he thought. As he began shifting under Aiden, Aiden finally spoke up, “I’m sorry.” A palm slid around the part of Tea’s forearm that had a bite on it. He whispered again, “I’m sorry.” He was much quieter that time.

Tea sighed and rested his head against Aiden’s palms. “Just,” he swallowed hard, taking down the anxiety with him, “tell me what’s going through your head.” Or else I’m going to blame myself. He didn’t say that aloud, but he definitely thought it. And felt it. He wondered vaguely if he had managed to upset Aiden by spending time with others, or by saying something in passing. He’d rather know so he can either correct his behavior or slap Aiden for his stupidity. He’s probably jealous, Tea thought. Why else would he insist on Tea shouting his name? When Aiden didn’t answer (again), Tea declared a little louder, “Huh?”

Aiden sputtered then, pushing up off of Tea. Before he did though, Tea felt it. When Tea was finally able to turn over and look at him, his suspicions were confirmed.

Aiden was flustering from head to toe.

“It’s nothing you should worry about,” the other bit out.

Tea almost sighed in relief. No, it wasn’t him. It wasn’t anything he’d done this time, but he wondered. Standing up, he watched as Aiden rushed to wrap a towel around his waist. “I want to know, Aiden.”

“Don’t worry about—”

“You’re just going to fuck my brains out and expect me not to ask why it felt different than before?” The question came from out of nowhere, freezing the both of them. They looked at each other, eyes wide and a purple fluster washing over Tea’s body as he realized what he’d said. Okay. That . . . was yet more evidence Aiden’s temper was rubbing off on him. A lot.

As Tea was taking a shaky breath, Aiden stammered out, “It’s n-not . . . your problem.”

Tea’s heart was hammering, both from the prior exertion and the conversation at hand. “At least tell me what it is.” Aiden started to shake his head. “Please?”

“No.”

The skinwalker had a thought. A mean thought. God help him, he would apologize for it later. For now, he just really needed to know what was going on. Pulling a towel off the rack, he wrapped it around his waist and followed Aiden out to the bedroom. As they walked, he asked, “Do I have to ask Luster to—?”

“Fuck that overgrown parasite!” Aiden picked up the pace on the way to the room as he shouted this.

Tea followed suit. “Is this because of him?” Why else would Aiden react so negatively to bringing the butterfly up?

Why else would Aiden be turning even redder?

“No!”

Lying. Aiden was lying. “What’s he doing?”

Aiden slammed the door open to their bedroom so hard he thought it might split. “Nothing!”

Tea slammed it shut in kind, the lock clicking loudly as he felt a combination of his anger and Aiden’s boiling in his chest and stomach. “What’s he doing, Aiden?”

“I said—”

“I don’t believe you!” Aiden hissed at the shout, but Tea didn’t stop or back down. No, he stepped closer. “Is he hurting you?”

“No!” He hadn’t thought it possible, but Aiden actually got even redder.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s none of your goddamn business okay?!”

“It is if it’s going to lead to you fu—!”

“It’s not . . . he’s not . . .,” Aiden dragged his hands down his face and Tea waited for the explanation, waited for him to cave without Tea having to invade his emotions. Or his dreams. He hated doing either, but he wanted to know what had gotten into Aiden. He wanted to know what Luster was doing, if anything.

Aiden didn’t say anything though. He dropped his hands and looked down. Tea looked down too but . . . .

His eye caught on the noticeable bulge in Aiden’s towel.

What . . . why . . . ?

“Are the two of you—?”

“No!” Aiden shouted. And then he was picking up a lamp by their bed and throwing it. Tea merely stepped back, waiting for Aiden to either throw something else or explain what the hell was happening here. “It would be easier if he just would!”

A lightness came over Tea and he had to do a double take at the emotions Aiden was experiencing. It was potent, hanging heavy in the room. Anger. Frustration.

Arousal.

Something clicked in Tea’s head, a conversation from before. “Your dreams?” Aiden said nothing. “He’s doing things in your dreams?”

“To you!”

Oh. Oh well . . . that was a . . . twist. And here Tea had thought Aiden might be jealous of people who were actually his partners. Not . . . the bugs that found it fun to pick on them once in a while.

He was slightly uncomfortable with the thought of the bugs doing things, even to his dream self. But . . . for them to be making Aiden watch . . ., “Why?”

“I don’t know!” the former Puppeteer yelled at the top of his lungs. Tea held up his hands to indicate he should quiet down (now of all times, he thought perhaps they were being too loud). Fortunately, Aiden took the hint and lowered his voice. He gestured wildly with his hands as he declared, “He just picked a fight with me one day, then this shit started up.”

Tea’s brow furrowed. “He picked a fight with you?”

“Yeah, said I was funny or something.” It was Tea’s turn to become even more purple. He brought his hands up to cover his mouth, eyes going wide. Oh God. Oh God, it made sense but . . . but . . . . Aiden looked him over and his tone changed drastically. “Oh God what? What’s with the . . . why are you making that face?” Tea’s stomach fluttered as he looked over his lover. Oh dear God, how . . . ? “Tea, what?!”

Tea knew he should lie about this. He knew this wasn’t the best way to break the news to Aiden, knew the other wouldn’t take it well. It was why he had covered his mouth in the first place, but . . . .

Yet . . . .

It still came spilling out of his mouth through his fingers. “He was proposing to you.”

There was a pregnant pause. Then a quiet, “What?”

Shut up Tea, he thought. But still . . . he didn’t. “He was trying to mate with you.”

Aiden looked like he was about to have a heart attack and die. He pointed at Tea, much quieter and much more in shock than before. “No. No that’s—”

“That’s how they court—”

“He was picking a f—”

“They pick a fight and the winner—,” finally, finally he zipped his own fucking lip.

But it was too late.

Aiden already looked mortified as he very, very loudly screamed, “AW HELL NO!”

The man then spent the next few weeks quite literally running from every possible interaction with Luster. And Luster seemed more entertained than ever.


	21. The Preying Mantis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another Phobia emerges, and his wants are much more sinister than Luster's and Gemmy's ever were. (A major collaboration between myself and Aiden's mun, who provided Aiden's and much of Geist's input in the story)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said the Bad Bugs would show up? Well here's the first one. Forced oral, paralysis, and implications of rape ahead. Please, if Geist or Nansi are in a fic remember to tread carefully. This is Geist's introduction.

Nightmares were satisfying to eat, but they lacked liveliness. Yes, the mortals were alive, but the dreams themselves? They tasted rather . . . plain. They didn’t move as he ingested them. They didn’t even fight. There was no real gain in devouring a dream.

But a living meal . . . .

One that screeched and fought to get away . . . .

He had developed a taste for the true hunt early on.

No one had actually questioned why he ate his young as soon as they were able to get up and move. No one questioned where his mates disappeared off to. No one questioned, no one cared. It wasn’t until he learned of the juicy and delectable thousands he could get out of one mortal that anyone bothered to reprimand. He hadn’t had any qualms about fleeing the Land of Dreams. He had an insurmountable source of providers waiting for him in the mortal realm.

From a Phobia, Geist could get a few meals (even more if he counted the carrier of the young).

From a mortal?

So, so many wriggling life forms. Half formed, juicy, helpless little insects. Delicious, wonderful young.

Wonderful.

The nightmares of the mortals he had kept in has time had kept him sated and alive. The young he got from them though . . . they fed his need. His need for more. For the hunt.

He’d lost track of how many mortals had died in his arms, of how many eggs he’d forced in them until they nearly burst. He didn’t particularly care to keep count anymore. There was only the choosing of his next victim, and the meals they could provide.

He found himself in a rather strange place on this night.

It was a large manor, and he was more than certain there were plenty within to fill his criteria. His criteria were rather simple: breathe consistently, sleep deeply, eat frequently. They had to be alive, hence the necessity of the breathing. They had to sleep deeply so they wouldn’t feel him stinging them to keep them still while filling them. He had to sense that they were well fed, or else they would not sustain the life he was going to stuff into them for very long. They’d come out dead. The whole point was that he wanted to feel the life leave the creatures as he devoured them, wanted to feel their deaths on his tongue. 

He wouldn’t settle for any less, and many of these creatures were cold and even . . . dead. What good was dead outside of a grave? Or outside of a stomach? He hissed, moving quickly and quietly. For a Phobia his size, he was astonishingly light on his feet.

And he had to be careful.

His antennae were picking up on other Phobias.

Darting through the halls, he sniffed out any and all, behind every door and around every corridor. He sensed plenty who were well fed, but not well rested. He sensed plenty who breathed, but he also sensed several who did not need breath. Such a full manor, one would think he would be able to find someone.

And then . . . he did.

He slept soundly, like the dead. Yet he breathed. He breathed loudly, and on his breath he could almost sense a recent meal. Brushing his antennae over the human’s stomach, his suspicions were confirmed. One, two, three, all criteria met in one fell swoop.

And he was a pretty human, too. Strong . . . stocky . . . .

The brood he could bear . . . .

Out of curiosity, Geist took a sip of his dreams. Oh . . . they had so many flavors. He liked that. He liked that a lot.

He ached to taste what the black haired human could give him.

“How many?” How many eggs could he fill his new host with? Slipping his finger to the back of the man’s--Aiden’s--neck to inject the venom into his spine, he would soon find out.

\--

Aiden had awoken with a stinging pain in his neck sometime the weekend before. He’d been rubbing the back of his neck for days, hissing and complaining. When Tea had offered to inspect it, he found nothing to hint. He simply thought the other had slept on it wrong and that he just needed to give it some rest.

Tea didn’t mind giving Aiden neck rubs. What he did mind was the pitifulness with which he complained of having a stomachache. Partway through the week, Aiden started groaning and growling at the slightest movement. He would go out to do yard work and have to sit down five minutes in.

“Is it a flu or--?”

“No,” he snapped.

Tea’s brow furrowed with concern. Scooting closer to Aiden as they sat on the front steps of the manor, he started to reach out to touch the spot Aiden was rubbing at the most. He was rewarded with a very loud hiss as the other proceeded to scoot away. Tea sighed. “If it’s bothering you that much, let me--”

“It’s fine.” Tea had a hard time believing him. He could sense the discomfort in the other, but . . . he didn’t want to press.

With another huff, he asked, “Can I get you something? Medicine, coffee?” He didn’t ask if the other wanted tea. He knew Aiden would say no.

He said no even now. “I’m fine.”

Tea hummed to himself as he continued to help his lover with yard work. At least the pain was intermittent. Maybe it would go away just as strangely as it had arrived.

\--

It had only been a few days, yet the expected time was looming closer. With each hiss and growl the man gave quietly in his sleep Geist’s young reveled in it. Standing at the side of the man’s bed the Phobia made slow moves to remove his covers and pillows, those items thrown about in Aiden’s attempts to gain comfort and peace in sleep that night like so many others before him. The long digits easily hiked up the man’s shirt to better inspect his work by running gently over the skin of his back and spine and working around his sides. 

Running his antennae over Aiden’s torso, Geist stopped as soon as the man started to twitch in his sleep. Once he settled back down, he resumed his inspection. With a hum, he listened in and felt for his young. He listened to their little sounds, soft almost inaudible versions of the noises they would make once they emerged. Small pitter patters. Feet. Wings. Hearts. 

They were all healthy and alive.

Geist leaned in closer, wanting to feel more of how the small grubs were doing. He kept leaning in, even humming to them through the human’s skin until a soft sound caught his attention. Ducking down slightly the mantis peered over to see a second body at the other side of the bed, healthy and strong. Geist’s antennae brushed at the air, mandibles clicking and tongue sliding out at the taste of the taller man’s dreams, 

They were delectable.

Geist was about to reach over and claim the other body but hissed, his antennae brushing wildly at the air. The other two Phobias were at work here, the clicking of another Phobia’s tail alerting him. He’d have to come back for that one. If it was the other two Phobias whose scent marked the room, he would make a lovely prize. They were far from the room, but heading in its direction. He’d wait for an opportunity if he had too, he wasn’t letting that one get away.

Instead his focus returned to the man still heavily asleep, still in slumber under the touch of his claws running over his abdomen. A quiet chuckle left the mantis’s mouth as he pressed on the smaller man’s stomach, Aiden now looking as if he had gained a few pounds as the grubs settled down below Geist’s hand.

“Soon,” he crooned.

Sliding back and moving to the door without a sound, it was soon clicking closed behind the mantis as he made his way down the hall.

\--

Gemmy and Luster hissed at one another as they came down the hall. Gemmy had an attitude with the butterfly, but did not react as violently as he once did. Luster could recall a time when the earwig would be clawing at him over something like this. Luster hummed and purred, assuring the Phobia still walking on his hands and feet that there should be no such concern of him being replaced. Gemmy gave a small yowl, indicating he didn’t fully believe him. Gemmy did smack Luster when he let out a series of clicks, laughing at the earwig.

Silly, Luster purred.

Mean, Gemmy growled.

Luster truly believed the other to be silly for thinking a human could replace him. At least Gemmy wasn’t trying to attack Aiden anymore. If anything, he was overly pleased the man was hiding behind his own mate. Gemmy found entertainment in Luster’s struggles to woo.

Did you laugh like this after I fought you? Luster hummed to his mate.

Gemmy merely purred, tongues flicking as if to indicate he had done more than laugh.

Luster was pleased.

They entered the room, and Gemmy let out a yowl that Luster had to smack him out of. He chastised the earwig for nearly waking the sleeping humans. Until Gemmy mentioned that he sensed . . . something. Luster felt a hint of concern then, watching as the earwig maneuvered through the room flicking his tongues. The Phobia had developed surprisingly sensitive tongues as a result of his lack of antennae. Granted, Luster could still see the nubs flicking on Gemmy’s head as if trying to compensate for the absence. When Gemmy was done looking over the floors and room, he looked up and hissed lowly. He swore something else had been there. Luster went behind him, but . . . he couldn’t very well sense enough to confirm nor deny anyone had been there since they had gone temporarily.

Tea had so many partners.

The scents they were picking up could be anyone.

Unsettled by the discovery, they stayed in the room the rest of the night. Each time Gemmy caught him staring at Aiden too long, Luster would look away before the earwig could hiss. His own antennae worked the air, sensing as much as possible.

They never thought to check on the sleeping forms themselves.

\--

He had waited, and he had watched, the two Phobias now having become a bigger problem than anticipated for the mantis. But soon, soon they would drop their guard, they would miss the moment, they would leave an opening. 

And that’s what they did.

And he made his advance.

The other two Phobias were nowhere in sight, it was dark, and both cultists were asleep. He was once again sliding into the room, the time had come and he made his way toward the taller one first, still as healthy and strong (and appetizing) as he had been the first night. His body vulnerable in his sleep and utterly helpless as Geist loomed over his sleeping form. 

A clawed digit ran down the man’s cheek, face leaned down mere inches from Tea’s own to feel him breathe. Mandibles twitching out in anticipation as that same claw ran down his jaw, over the calm pulse in his neck and back behind his shoulder, easily lifting him to sit up, second hand cradling his head and softly working through his hair. Tea was held gently, Geist watching over him for a few minutes before his finger landed on Tea’s spine. Sliding into the skin with a small noise and traveling down along his vertebrae, the skin pushing up slightly at the press. In a few moments he was pulling out, laying Tea back down into the soft cushions gently.

There was a soft dip in the bed, the mantis quick to take position over the now numb giant. Taking a second to listen all he heard was the other, smaller man’s breathing, slightly strained as his time approached. With no sign of the other two Phobias Geist set to work, his tongue sliding out easily, pressing at Tea’s lips and pushing in, forcing the man’s mouth open as he shifts forward.

It’s an almost gruesome display, like the mantis’s own mandibles along his jaw. The chitin level with his hips begins to twitch and squirm, pulling apart and revealing a long member. It emerged and twisted, smaller tendrils slick and thin following its motions. He let the smaller members slide over his larger, humming even as they readied for an easy slip into the giant’s body.

Grabbing at Tea’s hair the Phobia pulled his head up. It was neither careful nor gentle since there was no need to be. He wasn’t able to feel it, and it made the mantis laugh. Tongue pulling out with snapping strands of saliva, he was healthy. He crooned quietly, brushing another finger across the cultist’s cheek, “You will make a lovely host.” With only a second to position it the head was pressed to the man’s lips, the two small tendrils slipping in and prying his lips and teeth apart as Geist followed by rocking himself forward, member sliding thick and full down into Tea’s throat with a wet squelch.

There’s a vibrant green fluid, dripping down and filling his throat, with each motion sheathing him deeper into the skinwalker, the slick substance spills past Tea’s lips in thick and clumped strands. It leaves a sour taste on the other’s tongue. It was most curious, the cultists face still looked so blissful under him, unknowing of his fate, just like the raven haired man, he would soon find out. 

At first it was a small press, Geist stilling above him as he was almost all the way sheathed between the skinwalker’s teeth, pulsing against Tea’s tongue as his mouth was stretched wider, farther open. A bulge already visible against his throat as the mandibles of chitin reached forward to hold the man’s face still. Round and compact clumps passing from the Phobia and through Tea’s mouth and down his throat, Sliding down with the help of more fluid. One egg after the other, the gelatinous masses pressing out against the skin of Tea’s neck with each new emergence of an egg. Too busy enjoying the contortions of the fleshy host he hadn’t heard, nor had he noticed the soft changing of breaths from his side. He was enjoying the feeling of the skinwalker that he hadn’t been paying attention. 

“What the hell are you doing?!” 

It was a rage filled shout, Geist pulling up and back with a thrum of his wings rubbing together in warning. There was another sound, more feral and aggressive and Geist quietly cursed. The other was ruining everything, and before Geist could get a word out Aiden launched himself at the trespasser. The mantis easily avoided the attack, the man’s movements slow and lethargic but not without the force that could easily hurt behind it. Aiden was shouting in the dark, loud and almost animalistic as Geist quickly made his way to the door, the other Phobias were already on their way, he’d need to split them up to get what he wanted.  
\--

Gemmy and Luster were there in an instant, Luster hissing as he covered Tea protectively and Gemmy screaming down the hall.

“Gemmy! After it!” It was a snarled howl that tore itself from the former Puppeteer’s throat, though he hardly needed to give the order. He and the earwig charged out the shared bedroom recklessly, obsidian talons tearing into the wood as he twisted sharply to sprint down the ancient hall and after whatever had . . . attacked his lover – had invaded Tea and – The man growled at the thought – muscles working all the harder to find the monster he was going to rip to pieces. Gemmy wasn’t far behind the smaller with angered snarls and hisses of his own while Aiden’s blood red eyes flickered and darted around their familiar surroundings to find any sign of the intruder; any information to lead him to the monster.

Silence - quiet and far too vacant than it should have been - or what the man would have preferred. Aiden was close to breaking down a door at the rage coiling and constricting around his borrowed heart in frustration, the thoughts of what had happened flashing behind closed eyes of how Tea lay limp and numb on their bed while that creature stood over him – stood over the one he was supposed to protect. The man’s stomach was twisting painfully and he wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. Stopping to catch his breath and the earwig stalking up behind him with a hiss, and an angered click of fangs and pincers. “Split up, it couldn’t have gotten far . . .,” the words slipped past the human's lips before the Phobia could make a comment– tone holding no room for an argument– and Aiden was a little glad the other didn’t fight the order – slinking off with the click of its exoskeleton that always had the man’s hair on the back of his neck raise.

As soon as the bug was out of sight Aiden set out on his own vendetta - he was going to kill whatever it was with his own two hands - and claws - and anything else he could find. It wasn't going to get away.

\--

Luster’s tongue extended down Tea’s throat to his stomach, clearing away the acid and eggs that Geist had implanted. He had found one lodged in Tea’s throat from Geist having pulled away, and was stunned the skinwalker had not choked on it. He was stunned at how still Tea was up until he sensed the paralyzing venom keeping him like this.

The skinwalker’s throat almost burned his tongue as it rolled and felt and sensed for any remaining grubs and fluids within the giant. Luster straddled him as he carefully withdrew his tongue, slow and steady so he wouldn’t cause any more soreness than Tea would already be experiencing. His tongue moved, the sound of muscle sliding within wet muscle faint as he finished up his work. When he was finally finished doing what he could to restore Tea to his healthy, eggless self he waited.

He waited.

And waited.

Gemmy returned.

Tea awoke.

But . . . .

He had a sinking feeling they wouldn’t see Aiden again unless they went hunting for him.

He could practically feel the panic setting into Tea.

\--

It was quiet-the shouting of the others had died out long ago, instead leaving the sound of Aiden's feet pounding against the old, creaking boards of the Candle Cult mansion. The barren passes didn't seem as threatening in the middle of the night while adrenaline and rage pumped through the man's body, still caught in his sweatpants and baggy shirt from the abrupt awakening. Thinking Luster had better be taking good care of Tea or so help him, when he got back the butterfly would know just how . . . angry he . . . was - Aiden stopped to glance about his surroundings, the wallpaper worn and tattered and nothing looking like the normal pathways he took on an almost daily basis. No. Aiden spun on his heel, looking back down . . . the long ass corridor that looked like every other corridor that the fucking building was known for. 

He cursed. Letting out a low hiss the man threw his fist into the closest wall with an outraged cry, dust and debris clattering to the ground - he apparently couldn't do a fucking thing right - like the simple job of catching the one who hurt his lover. Running a shaky hand through ruffled ebony hair the smaller let out a pained noise, the creature would be long gone by now, somewhere in this fucking death trap of a home. This was far worse than just an irritating mess - gritting his fangs the smaller spun to backtrack, heading the way he came, back to Tea, and back to find Gemmy to see if he had better luck than Aiden did . . . . 

He had only made it a few paces down the hall when Aiden swayed back slightly, placing a hand against one of the torn walls to steady himself as he worked to catch his breath. Brows furrowing the smaller gave another exasperated growl, digging claws into the wall’s aged surface. No way in hell was he getting sick - shoving forward he bit back another cry, it felt like his stomach was fighting with his kidneys - and anything else in the way was getting mauled. Pain blossomed behind his eyes in the form of a migraine, the man had barely any time to react when the hall tilted off axis - surroundings spinning and he found his knees giving out on him. Arms shooting forward, he fell with a clatter. Palms scratching into the wood agonizingly as Aiden barely caught himself, trying to get his body up, but to no avail. Instead Aiden dropped to his elbows, dry heaving as warm pain started building up in his abdomen. A bloodied hand flying up to cover his mouth when he felt pin pricks and - movement? Up along his insides and climbing farther still - his insides screamed before the man was silenced by vibrant green fluid. Filling his throat and spilling past pale lips, its thick mass stringing down in clumps between his fingers as the pins and needles increased in intensity. Aiden stared down in horror, mouth agape and the mixed taste of acid and something else entirely burned across his throat and tongue - it didn't taste right, the texture was wrong - clinging and sticking and - he was going to throw up again. Lurching forward the man gave a strangled sound, small masses of black and red and movement building in his throat and mouth. 

What was only a few minutes felt like an eternity as Aiden continued to dry heave, nothing left in his stomach to get rid of. Everything burned as the man fought to catch his breath, the sound of small scratching and scittering catching his blurred gaze. The familiar sound of a Phobia’s exoskeleton caught his ears, letting out a soft whine, “G . . . Gemmy?” Oh god please - the things were - they were starting to move again - small - bugs? Those were fucking bugs - and they had . . . . Aiden gagged, the things squirming and writhing below his body before a new sound became apparent in the mixed background noise - a hum - continuous sound of something rubbing together and growing steadily louder, “G-Gemmy?!” trying to move back - away from the insects the hall began to spin. A textured hand placing itself against Aiden's but - but didn't quell the unnerving feeling, “J-jeeze don't do that -”

“How lovely.” . . . shit. “They look healthy, if not a little malnourished.” That wasn't . . . . “But we can easily fix that.” Before Aiden was even able to lift a fist and swing it at the monster something jabbed into his spine - pressing down and seconds later the man went limp. Body numb and falling against this new threat. Head rolling back to get a look at the one who had hurt Tea - the one who had done this. It pulled him up into its long arms before standing - holding the cultist gently in a mockery of affection. “Do not worry, we shall take good care of you.” It pulled him close and all Aiden wanted to do was scream, but his body was locked - he was trapped and it was getting harder to focus. “Rest easy now, you will not be getting any for a long while after.” Aiden didn't like its voice - didn't like the feeling of it holding him - didn't like its face so close to his - a slim finger trailed along his jaw as it started off farther down the hall, away from anything that was familiar - away from Tea.


	22. Trapped with the Mantis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aiden is trapped and being used as the mantis's personal breeder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad Bugs warning (in case you forgot, that's tw:rape, abuse)

He shook his head harshly, feeling his neck crack from the force as he tried to rid his hair of the insects that had crawled from his throat. Hands above his head, pinned by the creature that had fathered the things, he whined as he continued to feel tiny feet on his scalp, his neck, his spine. He felt them even in places where they weren’t crawling and he wanted them off.

He wanted the mantis off as well, but realized quickly that that wasn’t going to happen. It hissed in his ear as he writhed in its hold, its voice a hideous mockery of something humanoid as it told him, “Stay still now.”

“Fuck you!” he growled, flinching at the sound of the much larger Phobia’s wings rubbing together in annoyance. Aiden cried out as something slick and hot prodded at his rear, jerking away in panic as he yelled, “Get off!”

Another of the Phobia’s disgusting hands gripped his hip to hold him still and Aiden shook. He grit his teeth as he felt one of the offspring crawl curiously towards his mouth. In an act of revenge he let the creature crawl close before biting it in half. Spitting its remains out onto the ground, his eyes went wide as a much louder hiss filled the dark room and the mantis penetrated him harshly. Aiden’s mouth hung open as a silent scream lodged in his throat, body stretched too much and insides aching in the most painful ways. “You owe me more for that.” 

Quiet, broken moans spilled from Aiden’s lips as the mantis thrust into him rough and fast, giving him no time to adjust. Tears gathered in his eyes as he pressed his forehead to the wall, heart hammering just as rapidly as the bug’s hips. He burned where the mantis moved, burned from the source while the pain moved outward. It spread through him mercilessly, accentuated by the strokes of tiny feet skittering over his skin. When he wasn’t focused on the awful rhythm the other had set, he felt his skin crawling with its offspring. He wished for paralysis, but the mantis had declared the bugs currently running over his body were already getting fat on his dreams. He didn’t remember what it was like to dream anything other than the terrors they forced on him. It hadn’t even been that long since he’d left Tea with Gemmy and Luster, but he felt so drained. So exhausted.

And so full of agony.

He let out a strangled scream as the water ran from his eyes, the mantis spiking into him without mercy. The Phobia pumped him full of more of whatever had hatched inside him, pumped him full of more monsters that would come spilling from his throat in two weeks time. Would the Phobia let him live that long? Would he survive?

A fist clenched around another of the offspring and the Phobia struck him hard, driving up into him with more force. Its voice and the sound of its wings washed over him and he squeezed his eyes shut. He tried to imagine it wasn’t a bug thrusting up into him, tried not to feel the strange exoskeleton against his flesh as opposed to flesh similar to his own. He tried comforting himself by imagining it was someone else splitting him open. Even the heartless bastard that resided within Tea would do. At least he wasn’t a demon, an insect. He was just a monster.

Aiden didn’t know when he’d begun to long for the more human looking monsters. Anything would be better than this thing and its children. He wanted so terribly to lie in a soft bed next to his warm and gentle lover. Eventually those desires hurt him just as much as the mantis abusing his body, only it wasn’t his body being carved. It wasn’t his mind even. 

It was his heart.


	23. Freed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had been a few days, even a week, before Gemmy and Luster found Aiden trapped deep in the catacombs at long last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad Bugs warning

Even in his sleep he felt the thousands of feet, saw the hundreds of eyes of the offspring that had made their home in his hair and crawling all over him. He’d given up trying to squash them all when he learned it drew the attention of the one who had fathered them. He was so sore from the beatings, from the forced entry into his body. He lay somewhere deep in the manor with only a blanket, which he had shoved away when he remembered that it couldn’t protect him. He’d learned long ago when he was a child that pulling the blanket over his head would not protect him.

Every time a different shade of light came spilling across his black and blue mottled form, he tensed. The offsprings’ wings hummed loud enough in his ears that any attempt at listening out for anything else left him frustrated and whimpering. Covering his eyes as light fell across him, he ignored how his skin screamed in agony and drew his legs in tight to his torso. It wasn’t until he felt the familiar contrast of exoskeleton against his skin that he started growling and swinging. Almost immediately, he was pinned. “Keep still,” the bug ordered. Its . . . its voice sounded different. Still familiar, but different. Aiden started to kick only to have his legs pinned as well. Aiden shouted incoherently, struggling against the hold the other had on him before he was met with another statement.

It originated not from where the other had spoken, but above his head. Like there were two bugs rather than one. “He doesn’t know it’s us,” the raspier voice declared. He felt feet scattering across him. It felt like . . . like the small mantises were fleeing.

“And he is not here,” the other spoke, referring to someone other than Aiden. “Take care of the hatched. Then go look for him.”

There was a purr of satisfaction off the raspier speaker before a set of tongues began combing through Aiden’s hair. Aiden cried out as the grip on his legs tightened and he tried to jerk his head away. The bugs persisted, however, the tongues in his hair drawing offspring into jaws that devoured them each in short crunches. Many of the offspring never got the chance to flee. Those that did were not free long.

Meanwhile, at the other end of his body, something slick slid along his crack immediately following a short apology. He arched away crying out yet again as the muscle invaded his body, penetrating deeper than anything had before. His eyes shot wide and his mouth hung open as the already pained muscles were stretched yet again without his consent. He stopped breathing, staring helplessly up at the bug at his head and seeing that it was not a mantis at all. It was an earwig, and it was too busy devouring the mantises to offer him any reason as to why there was something else sliding into him and stretching parts of him that should never see this sort of action. It was the vacuum that started up inside him that gave him the impression the other bug—the butterfly—might be doing to the unborn what the earwig was doing to the born.

He couldn’t find it within himself to be grateful in that moment. Not when he was in so much pain and still rendered vulnerable to creatures who didn’t appear to care.

At some point there was nothing holding his wrists down aside from himself. Then the tongue was withdrawn from his body and the blanket that had not been able to cover or protect him was being wrapped around his body snugly. He whined as he was then lifted off the ground, wrapped and bundled without a hope to escape these new perpetrators.

He didn’t realize he’d passed out until he found himself in much warmer arms. His eyes fluttered open and he was greeted with so much light he had to close them again. He was still in pain, and there were still hands on his person. These hands were not made of exoskeleton, however. No, they were flesh and blood like his.

And a relief and grief he knew damn well did not belong to him filled his chest till it was overflowing painfully.

Eyes opening again slightly, he gazed up at the person holding him and whispering inaudibly to him. A chin rested on Aiden’s forehead as the other rocked him gently awake, and Aiden could count on one hand the number of times he’d been this ecstatic to see those golden eyes staring back at him so tenderly. A fear crept across his skin, and he found himself begging, “Let this be real.” His voice was so soft and sore from his screams, but he prayed again, “Please, let it be real,” anyway.

“It’s real.” Tea’s lips brushed his forehead and he felt hot droplets falling on his cheeks. They weren’t his, though. They were not Aiden’s tears. “I’m real. You’re real. We’re real.”

Soon his tears would join Tea’s, though.


	24. Apologies Long Overdue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tea and Gemmy come to a quiet understanding during Aiden's recovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad Bugs warning (more recovery than anything triggery)

Tea came awake as soon as he heard the forced gasps from Aiden that threatened to turn to screams. This was the first time Tea had actually almost gotten some rest since getting Aiden back from Geist. He’d spent so much of his time trying to take care of the other, trying to keep the bugs away from him. Not that the bugs sought to hurt Aiden, just that Aiden really didn’t need to be subject to the presence of something so like his attacker.

And Luster was sitting on him, crouched on his back like a hag.

“Luster! Down!” Tea yelled, like he was yelling at a dog rather than a dream demon. At least the bug was in human form, but his actions were still greatly uncalled for. It was bad enough Luster had pursued Aiden sexually prior to this. He really should back off for a bit, even if he was actually concerned for the human. Luster slid off the panicking Aiden, who lay on his stomach with his fists gripping the pillow and eyes wide. Tea whispered soft reassurances to him, taking his place on top of Aiden and caging the raven haired man with his arms and legs. Kissing his cheek Tea instructed Aiden to take deep breaths, schooling his own breathing to give Aiden a model. Aiden shivered, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing up against Tea as he tried to obey. Tea combed his fingers through Aiden’s hair, reminding him that there was nothing crawling through the dark strands. Tea had him. Tea was going to take care of him. Which was the mantra he started repeating to Aiden. “I’m here.” He closed his eyes and pressed the side of his face to Aiden’s. “You’re okay, I’m here.”

“He was having a nightmare,” Luster murmured, sitting on the floor. Aiden tensed under Tea and Tea turned a glare on the demon in human form. Before he could bash Luster for feeding on Aiden, the butterfly said, “I was trying to wake him.”

Tea studied the creature, whose face did not express in quite the same way human faces should. Luster was genuine though. Running his palms over Aiden, Tea turned away from the Phobia and returned his attention to calming Aiden back down.

Occurrences like these took place infrequently throughout the month.

That night once Aiden had calmed, Tea closed the door behind him and made it part way down the hall. With Luster in tow, he waited for the butterfly to walk past him and around the corner before he leaned against the wall. Tea felt himself start to dry heave. Now that he wasn’t with Aiden, was trying to go get him something to drink and nibble on despite his protests that he didn’t want anything, Tea felt the weight of what the other had been through full force and recalled his own experiences in this area. Wrapping an arm around his middle, he slid to the floor in the hall and prayed everyone remained asleep at this hour. He prayed no one saw, no one heard, no one knew he was crying softly just feet from his and Aiden’s room.

Tea sat on his heels, face cast down as he held himself up by one hand and held his torso with the other. He kept his cries quiet, keeping his pain to himself as much as he was capable. It hadn’t been Tea who had been hurt this time. He could handle himself being hurt. It would have been easier that way, he at least knew how to move around the pain.

But it destroyed him to think Aiden had felt this level of agony. It devastated him to see his lover fearful and not the snarky jerk he’d grown used to. He had never wanted this for him. Not in all their years together and apart had he wanted any experience like this to befall him. Tea could survive this. He could have taken all the pain Aiden had endured, but instead it had been Aiden who had been hurt this time.

Tea had failed to protect him.

He shook from the force of his sobs, still keeping them quiet though no one had seemed to hear him. He didn’t realize how hot his skin had become until a cool hand touched his shoulder, brushing the back of his neck. Tea jerked his head to the side to find a human Gemmy poised on the ground beside him. The two exchanged long, appraising looks. The dream demon, who once upon a time had to be bribed to shut his mouth, was silent. Like Luster he wasn’t readable in the sense that human expressions were readable, but he emoted still. Tea was taken aback when the other made his feelings on the subject known by patting Tea’s head almost reassuringly. 

The skinwalker stared at the three eyes which watched him unblinkingly, expecting Gemmy to laugh as he always had when Tea was in pain. Instead, he felt sympathy from the other. Genuine sympathy bordering on empathy from having seen someone he loved in pain as well. It had never occurred to Tea that Gemmy might actually know what it’s like to feel this. Maybe he hadn’t felt for Tea when he was the one in pain, but he certainly felt for Tea when his loved one was in pain.

Of all the times to feel for the earwig . . . .

Tea closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall, continuing to pull in shaky breaths as Gemmy patted his head calmly. A few minutes in and the earwig had started cooing softly to him, and Tea somehow understood he was saying Aiden was going to be alright. Tea wanted to believe that. He wanted to believe Gemmy. Then again, he had to. He had to in order to get himself moving again. He had to in order to continue taking care of the one he loved.

When Tea was strong enough to stand and move on his own, Gemmy followed him. The Phobia still refused to walk upright like a human, but Tea didn’t comment. When the two met Luster in the kitchen, Tea pulled a jug of juice from the fridge. He went to pour it in a cup, reaching into his tea cupboard and pulling down some snack foods. Turning to look at the Phobias, Gemmy on the floor beneath Luster perching on the counter, Tea tossed them a bag of unsalted chips each. “Try them.” The two were always asking for new experiences in their human forms. Tea didn’t know how else to say ‘thank you’ other than to offer his own nightmares. They’d refused that offer before, saying it wasn’t right to take from the body that housed them without complaint. He didn’t understand their rules and morals as Phobias, and they didn’t really care enough to fully explain.

But as they tore into the bags of chips and wolfed them down, Tea knew he had gotten his gratitude across to them in the small gesture.


	25. No Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aiden's dreams are now haunted by his experience with Geist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad Bugs warning (nightmares)

Aiden jolted awake, and as soon as he realized it wasn’t Tea holding him his eyes shot wide and he started to panic. Frightened gasps and the beginnings of screams culminated in his throat, his heart pounding terribly hard in his chest. He almost had a scream out when a deceptively human palm started running over the side of his face. The alleged human shushed him, whispering, “You’re safe.”

He continued gasping, heart still pounding horribly. It wasn’t Geist. It wasn’t Geist holding him, but it was still a bug albeit a bug in human form. Shivering, he buried his face in his pillow and curled his fists in the sheets. He still remembered the pain, the incredible pain that was the praying mantis forcing himself on him. Curling in on himself, he felt Luster’s warmth against his back as the butterfly pressed closer. Arms wrapped around his waist and under his head, he hummed soothingly to Aiden. But Aiden wasn’t sure he could be comforted by him. By a Phobia. “Where’s Tea?” he forced out, almost choking as he said it.

“Getting you some food and drink.” Gemmy must be with him, Aiden assumed. The bugs were never far from either of them anymore. Tears pricked his eyes as he tried to keep from shuddering any harder. Fingers brushed through his hair and he had half a mind to ask Luster to stop. To get away. To never lay a hand on him again. At the same time, the movement was so gentle and reassuring. He was used to only Tea being able to make him relax after a terrible nightmare, but Luster’s hands were suddenly very . . . welcome. He closed his eyes, forgetting who it was that was trying to comfort him. Until Luster asked, “Will you let me—?”

“No,” Aiden immediately shut him down. He’d been asking to reenter his dreams for a while now. Aiden couldn’t take that. This he was just starting to handle, and it was mostly because Luster wasn’t in his normal form. He wasn’t sure he was up for having the bug in his dreams again. Not after the series of extremely . . . extremely passionate ones he’d once given Aiden.

Luster hummed, face settled against the back of Aiden’s head. “You will not see me if that is what concerns you.” Aiden was silent. Yes, that was an issue. Not the only one, but a major one. “I can make it so you don’t even dream.” Aiden went still. Could . . . would he really do that?

He shut down again at the thought of the dreams Luster had once given him. His insides grew tense and suddenly he was thinking of his tongue. He whimpered, brow furrowing as he grit his teeth. That tongue. That tongue that had been long enough to pull Geist’s eggs from inside of him. Tears sprang to his eyes once more and honestly . . . he would rather have the dreams of before. He couldn’t admit that aloud. He couldn’t let Luster hear that. But he also couldn’t stop thinking about it. About how those dreams had actually been appealing once upon a time.

Now look at him. He was mortified.

Aiden rolled over, putting his face to Luster’s chest and letting the bug hold him. Shivering, the earwig had already begun to repair Tea’s mind at Aiden’s request. What harm could befall him, to let Luster do the same? “No dreams,” he whispered.

Luster hummed, Aiden’s head tucked under his jaw as he squeezed Aiden closer. Aiden’s fists balled against the Phobia’s chest. No dreams. No dreams, no nightmares, no desires. He needed to regroup. He needed to get his head back together. And if Luster was willing to help him do that, then he would let him.

Aiden let out a gasp that turned into a sigh as he felt the tug of his hair between Luster’s teeth. Though his human mouth couldn’t possibly be as thorough in cleaning his hair this way, the feeling was comforting. He needed comfort.

He just hadn’t expected that comfort to come from a butterfly.

\--

Luster kept watch over Aiden while Tea was busy fetching for him. His recovery was slow, but the bruises at least were healed. The cuts were less colorful, and he jumped less frequently. It took help getting him used to Luster being in his normal form again, but he did his best to keep up the appearance of the human. Whatever would bring Aiden closer to him.

Whatever would help Aiden trust him.

Luster had never wanted to hurt Aiden in this manner, and Gemmy was always on the lookout for that . . . monster to return. So far they had found no trace of Geist. They hoped that they would continue to find no trace.

The butterfly hoped to continue to monitor Aiden’s dreams with ease.

Every now and then though . . . a nightmare would slip through.

\--

“Please no!”

“You’re just making this harder on yourself.”

The slick members slid along his inner thigh, curling against his still sore entrance.

“Don’t, please—”

“I’m warning you.”

The click and grind of the Phobia’s chitin and jaws left Aiden thrashing, his body arching and bucking away even while Geist held him down.

“Geist, don’t!”

“Stay still or you will regret.”

Aiden had just felt hundreds of the mantis’s get fleeing his body, and that still wasn’t enough for the Phobia. He wanted more from Aiden.

“Please!”

“Oh well.”

Pain. Splitting, tearing, utter agony. Aiden was spread wide open yet again, and no amount of screaming or pleading or crying could save him. He was never to leave this dark. He was never to be free of Geist. He felt their hideous little bodies crawling over him while their sire pounded into him, stuffing him with more and more. The wet and disgusting noises was forever ingrained into the part of him that housed every sound that had ever done him harm. He filed the sound of Geist thrusting into him without remorse away with the sound of Tea screaming for mercy.

Oddly, he thought he heard screaming over his own.

“Aiden!”

“Get off.”

“Aiden, wake up!”

“Get off!”

His throat hurt. His fists slammed against exoskeleton. There was a body straddling his much like the one that had been invading him only moments ago. Aiden kicked, feet tangling in the sheets and comforters as four palms fought to secure his arms. Once they were pinned above his head, Aiden was screaming and sobbing again with eyes shut and gut clenching. Not again. Oh please, not again.

“Aiden!” the voice called over his screams. Though he did not open his eyes to see who it was, Aiden knew it wasn’t the mantis pinning him to the mattress. There had never been a mattress to be pinned to with Geist. Nor had he ever been clothed. He was still clothed, and he wasn’t being reprimanded for his behavior. No, now the Phobia trapping him was cooing and hissing, and it horrified him until the noises were couple with gentle, verbal reminders that Aiden was safe and awake now. Panting and blinking away the salty tears, Aiden’s sore throat caved and a sob escaped. “It was only a dream, Aiden,” the Phobia declared softly as he loosened his grip on Aiden’s arms. Two palms moved to cup Aiden’s face, digits gliding over the fallen tears to smear them away. “A memory perhaps, but only a distant one.”

Though he wanted to agree and forget, Aiden choked up for a second. Then he whispered, “Not so distant.” The pain had been real. Real and horrifying. Aiden still felt it in his core. He couldn’t easily forget that.

It didn’t help that Luster was in his demon form either.

Strangely . . . Aiden wasn’t shaking as much as he once had when faced with the butterfly’s true form.

Luster wrapped all four arms around Aiden and pulled the human against him. Though it had been exoskeleton that fed these nightmares, Aiden sought comfort against the hard body of the Phobia. Head tucked under Luster’s, the Phobia wrapped protectively around him, Luster whispered, “He will not hurt you again.”

Aiden felt . . . strange. He felt strange, that this creature was so protective of him. Protective and gentle. It floored him, and confused him. Even with the knowledge that Luster wanted him in the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but feel the other was not lying. 

Even though the other was cold and hard against him, he couldn’t deny he needed this contact to feel safe.

He wrapped his arms around the thin body of the butterfly, sucking in a deep breath as he growled, “I’ll kill him.” He swore he would. There was nothing that would stop him.

Except, of course, him. “I know you will,” Luster supported anyhow. “You will,” he reiterated.

Aiden closed his eyes as antennae grazed over his head and neck. Squeezing Luster tighter, he elected not to sleep for the rest of the night. He would rather hold onto something rooting him to the present rather than slip back to the past where he was weak and helpless. He may still be helpless now, but at the very least . . . he wasn’t alone.


	26. The Itsy Bitsy Spider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geist returns, and he brings help: a tarantula named Nansi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAD BUGS

He had needed backup, so he had sought out another similar to himself.

What’s in it for me? Nansi hissed.

A new breeder, he clicked back.

I can find plenty on my own.

None that will survive.

That drew her attention. She moved silently for a spider her size, closing in on the praying mantis. You have found special mortals, she crooned. He nodded. Take me there.

It was sometimes too easy to attract the one ally he had retained from the Land of Dreams.

\--

“No, don’t you fucking—,” the door shut and locked and Aiden was left shivering alone in the room. Meanwhile Tea was out there, with . . . it. “Tea!” he cried, to which he only heard the giant’s growl.

And Geist’s laugh.

Aiden started to back away from the door, terror gripping him and freezing his innards in place. The ghosts of newly healed aches played across his skin at the sound of the creature that had made him hurt. He was panting, breaths shallow and chest heaving rapidly as he recalled those dark days where the flash of light meant being held down and forced into painful positions. His very bones screamed in rebellion.

And Tea was out there with it.

It was attacking in broad daylight, and Tea was facing it.

Alone.

Aiden flew forward, banging his fists on the door as Tea snarled, “He’s mine.”

“Tea no!” That barely sounded like Tea, but he knew it had to be him as soon as the animalistic sound offs began.

“For now,” the mantis responded with a snicker. Aiden heard it move, heard the wings shifting together in annoyance. An annoyance that typically resulted in pain.

“Tea please!” Aiden screamed desperately. He screamed the others name, banging his fist on the door until his hands were bruised all over. His heart hammered, chest tightening from panic—and Tea’s panic, oh Tea was scared he knew—but he couldn’t make the door open. He grabbed the handle and yanked, twisted, shook, but it wouldn’t budge.

“You are quite a mate,” Geist mocked, tone amused. “I almost had you too, I believe.”

“Yeah well, you don’t have me now. And you can’t have him.”

“Tea please,” Aiden whimpered against the door. He pressed his whole body against it, thinking maybe he could just phase through the wood and bring Tea back in the room with him for safety. Geist was going to hurt him, he knew he was going to hurt him. Tea didn’t need that, no not again. Not after everything he’d already seen and been through. “Tea you fucking idiot, please.”

Hot tears were spilling down Aiden’s face as he heard Geist respond, “I don’t want you, but she does.”

He actually felt Tea’s heart stutter to a stop at the scratch of several feet (feet? Definitely feet) sliding against the ceiling. It stopped, then it started hammering three times faster than before as loud inhuman cries of terror fled Tea’s mouth. The creature on the ceiling approached him rapidly.

Aiden sobbed and stepped back from the door as he heard bodies hitting the ground and shuffling madly. He saw the shadows under the doorjamb, heard Tea’s snarls as they turned from terror to rage to terror again, felt the giant’s heartbeat grow steadily quicker.

Then as the movements stilled slowly, so slowly, the heartbeat slowed too and Aiden didn’t know what his vocals were doing. He just knew his throat was as sore as his hands from their protests and he didn’t start hearing himself shouting, “NO!” over and over and over until he heard the second creature dragging someone—Tea—down the hall and away from him. Away from Aiden. He slammed against the door then, the wood unforgiving. “ROWAN!”

Until it opened and there stood Geist. “Honey I’m home.”

Tea wouldn’t die, but soon Aiden would.


	27. Went Up the Water Spout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geist almost has Aiden in his clutches again, and Nansi immediately sets to work on using Tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAD BUGS BAD BUGS BAD BUGS BAD BUGS LIAM AND LANCE MAKE AN APPEARANCE BUT BAD BUGS

“Come on sweetie,” the mantis purred as it lurched forward to grab at Aiden. Aiden dodged, hitting the wall as the mantis propelled forward and hit his and Tea’s bed. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” it mocked. “Just come quietly, I promise it’ll hurt less.”

“F-fu-fu—,” the words never came out. He bolted for the door, but before he knew it the mantis was before him again. He slammed it so hard the wood split on his impact and the gigantic monster edged closer to him. Aiden felt numb from the fear as he fell back on the ground, kicking away from the Phobia.

Meanwhile Geist laughed. “You bore me such hardy get the last time. Would you really deprive me of more meals so rich? That’s cruel of you.”

Aiden crawled back as the monster approached, his skin clammy and his eyes wide. Before he knew what was happening, two hands wrapped around his neck and he wanted to scream at the exoskeleton against his flesh but couldn’t. He couldn’t breathe. He heard the tear of his clothing, felt clawed fingers gripping his thighs and spreading them, but couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t fight. He clawed at the palms on his neck, but couldn’t save himself as he felt the familiar burn of Geist pressing against his hole and he wanted to scream. He wanted to scream for Tea, Luster, anyone to save him again, to not let him be subjected to this again.

Geist was just pressing in, his mind just fogging over from lack of oxygen when he was released and a terrible screech reached his ears. There was a scuffle and noise and a crash and thunk and nothing made sense as he lay on the floor prone and weak. So fucking weak. He couldn’t even save himself.

He hadn’t realized he had lost consciousness until he was being shaken awake by someone who did not have the body of a bug. He clung to that person hard as he came to, distraught and desperate for . . . for . . . .

Aiden glanced up and saw five eyes staring back at him from a human face, unblinking and unexpressive. There were human arms wrapped tight around him, a yellow substance he knew to be Geist’s blood splattered on the butterfly turned humanoid’s cheek. Aiden’s heart hammered painfully, but he didn’t immediately pull away. He shook in the other’s hold, still very vulnerable to something that he feared more now than ever. Still he did not pull out of Luster’s grip. He clung to Luster, a broken plea leaving his lips, “Save Tea.” His whole being cracked and he wanted to sob. He wanted to break so bad, but he needed Luster to, “Please save him.”

“You will,” Luster declared as Aiden clung harder. “You will.”

The unspoken determination that Aiden would be well enough to do it himself did nothing but remind Aiden that he should have been able to accomplish such a feat easily in the first place. That time, he did break.  
   
\--

His eyes rolled behind his eyelids as he heard the slice and tear of skin. He shifted and immediately regretted the action, as moving sent pins spiking through every nerve. The harder he fought, the more they stabbed. He couldn’t get his limbs to move, they felt bound. He blinked several times, but his vision never fully returned. His mind never stopped acting fogged over. Tea passed out again after acknowledging there were eight eyes staring back at him and fainting.

When he next woke, he heard a quiet voice that rasped like Gemmy’s. It most definitely did not belong to the earwig, and it was close. So close. Right beside his head. It whispered, “You’re a resilient one, aren’t you?” Tea’s head twisted from side to side and he vaguely felt himself moan. These simple actions still sent tremors of pain through his system. “What a pretty shade of purple.” Something brushed against his cheek and his brow furrowed, a whimper slipping his lips as he again fought to see. “Is it true no matter what I do to you that you’ll live?” His gaze met the eight eyes again and his eyes widened as he recalled how he’d come to be here. “I look forward to finding out.”

He screamed as she bit him again, and he consequently passed out from the coagulation of his blood.

This time when he woke up, there were two separate sets of eyes. Two different people, one set glowing green and the other glowing red. Tea froze under their scrutiny as the pins spiked once more. “It’s been a long time, boy.”

That . . . that voice. It . . . no. No, it couldn’t be.

“How does it feel, knowing you chose the wrong side?”

“You’re dead,” Tea didn’t feel himself say, but he heard it. At the very least he thought it.

And they certainly heard it. Lance laughed aloud as Liam smiled. Their silhouettes loomed over him, but all he could really see were the glow of their eyes and mouths. That was enough. The voices were enough to send terror coursing through his thick veins. “He thinks we’re dead.”

“Pathetic,” Lance uttered.

“No boy.” A hand ghosted over Tea’s cheek, red nails dragging over pale flesh. Tea winced and was rewarded with a fresh slap of pain from his own movements. The edge of his vision was lined with dots, but he could only focus on the men staring down at him. “We were never dead.”

Lance let out a daunting chuckle. “But they are.”

Tea jerked his head from Liam’s palm, curling despite the pain. He whined loudly at the horrendous amount of agony that passed through his body. He was going to be sick from it. He was going to be sick from them. He shook and it made every inch of himself feel like it was on fire. “The cult you thought you could save. All gone.”

“Did you think they would save you?”

“Why would they save something like you?”

“Did we not teach you everything you know?”

“Do you not owe us your life?”

“I gave you my life,” Tea heard himself say. His eyes blurred though he didn’t feel the heat of tears falling from his eyes. “I gave you everything, and you c-crushed me.”

“That’s what you get for misbehaving, beast.” Tea squeezed his eyes shut at Lance’s words.

“And you went too far this time,” Liam declared. “Now, we have to break you.”

“And make sure you can never be repaired.”

“I should have done this a long time ago.”

“This isn’t real.” The statement was weak and hushed. “You’re not real.”

“No,” Liam said. “The life you thought you had. The one you thought you began anew. That is the lie.”

“This pain is your only truth.”

Tea couldn’t see. He couldn’t see through the tears or the spikes in his nerves. He was in so much pain. So much pain they . . . no they couldn’t be right. They couldn’t be, this was wrong. The cult wasn’t gone, he was still here. They still had him. He needed to get back to them somehow, back to the people who helped him, who saved him, who loved him.

He thought of one person and the name slipped out pitifully. “Aiden.” He almost willed the man to appear, prayed to be saved from this nightmare. This all too common nightmare. He usually woke up by now.

But this time he didn’t. “Aiden?” Lance asked almost mirthfully.

“You think he will help you?”

“He practically threw you to us.”

“Do you think he loves you?”

“He does.” Tea’s voice lacked the conviction such a statement required.

And they laughed at him. “What a poor, delusional child.”

“Delusional creature.”

Liam ran another hand through Tea’s hair, sending shockwaves through the skinwalker. “How could anyone love a monster?”

Tea shook his head, but Lance continued with, “He doesn’t touch you. Not like we do.”

“And if he doesn’t, can you really say he wants you?”

Sick, they were sick. They were wrong about him. “He does. He . . . he wants—”

“He couldn’t love you when you turned. How can he love you now?”

“The answer is he can’t.”

“Or couldn’t, rather.”

“Because that life is a lie.”

“Your reality is here, with us.”

“We will never leave you.”

“And he will never save you.”

Tea’s world shattered even as he wished for it not to. “You’re the m-m-monsters,” he tried to retort.

To which Lance replied, “And you have learned far too much belligerence from that cult.”

“Such a terrible influence. I’m glad to be rid of it.”

Wrong wrong wrong, this was all wrong, they were wrong. “This is just a dream.” Tea knew it was. He knew in his head this was a dream.

But in that moment, the only thing he felt through the pain were their hands sliding over his bare skin and it destroyed every last bit of his resolve. “If this is a dream, boy,” Liam stated, “we will not let you wake up.”

“Not this time.”

Tea sobbed, a faint raspy laugh sounding seemingly from the distance as their faces neared him. His vision was too blurred for him to tell the eyes and colors apart anymore.

\--

Nansi gazed down at the somewhat lucid giant. He’d been envisioning ghosts of old abuses, his eyes glossed over from tears and her venom. She hummed and smiled as her offspring crawled from the gaping wound in his middle and ran rampant over his body. They fed hungrily on his hallucinations and horrified thoughts, biting and infecting him further with the poison that would keep him still and unable to fight. Anyone else would die. He did not.

The brood had hatched a week early and were just as strong as if they had been within him the full two weeks.

Poised over his still bound body, she unsheathed herself and used her pincers to spread the torn flesh on his abdomen again. “What a promising acquisition,” she murmured as he stared blearily up at her, not seeing her or feeling her but most assuredly hearing her for the time being. “I truly could fill you to the brim and you would continue to give me impressive children.” Her offspring darted away from her as she inserted her member into his torso again, filling his insides with eggs once again. Her member twitched and slid easily into his black and purple insides, and she wondered briefly what it would be like to fill him as Geist had spoken of filling the human he’d been taken with. She brushed a palm over his cheek, marveling at how he squeezed his eyes shut and started whimpering again. She knew then he was no longer hearing her, but envisioning the men who had plagued his mind the whole time she had had him. “I would give you pleasant dreams if I could, dear boy.” Her mouth stretched into a wider grin as she retracted her member and wove his skin back together. Then she gently rolled him over onto his stomach. “After all, I am going to keep you for as long as you provide for me. It would be the least I could offer someone as magnificently durable as yourself.” Two of her legs started pulling at his clothing, drawing them from around his hips and exposing his unbound groin, rear, and thighs. Her hands turned his head gingerly, brushing at the water flooding down his cheeks and brushing over his lips. Lips she could just picture wrapping around her member just as she poured more of herself down his throat. “But you are so good looking, shattering under me like this. I can see why they broke you the way they did.” She wrapped around him, all of her limbs drawing him into a feverish embrace as her member pressed at the entrance she had revealed to herself. Cries fell from his lips as her offspring clung to his front, his head falling back against her chest. “I will not let you out of my sight the way they did.” She slid into him and his mouth gaped at the sound. Nansi sighed and thrust down into him, tightening her hold on his body as she pumped him full with yet more of her brood. “I will not let you wander free of me.”

She understood why Geist had been fond of taking advantage of his human. This was much more intimate than what she had done with the other mortals she had once gathered. She had seen them split and die at the hands of her offspring, but this creature who whined and cried beneath her would be hers for as long as he lived. He was tight around her member, his body warm and welcoming against her. He let out a broken plea for release in the form of a name. “Liam.”

Nansi almost laughed at his mistake, pushing into him faster and emptying into him as he continued half sobbing half screaming. The screams were animal, and she rather enjoyed his range. “He was a kindness, sweet thing.” She thrust a few more times before withdrawing slowly. She held him a moment longer, feeling him shiver in her embrace. Then she lowered him softly and rolled him over again. “There are no words for the things I am about to do to you.” None in her language. Prying his mouth open, noises still spilling from it, she prepared to feel his throat close around her as she sheathed herself in him a third time.


	28. Down Came the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lola goes to extreme lengths to rescue Tea.
> 
> This piece was cowritten with Pao.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAD BUGS BAD BUGS WHATCHU GONNA DO WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU

As soon as she heard that Tea was missing, Lola was on high alert. The panic in Aiden and the bugs was almost palpable. She didn’t have nearly as much sense as Tea did in that regard, and if she did she might have been overwhelmed. As it was, she felt overwhelmed by her own terror.

It was her terror that propelled her forward, listening intently for any sign of the giant or his captor. Aiden, Luster, and Gemmy had given her as much description as they could. Tea had been gone a week.

A week.

No sign of a seven foot tall sole skinwalker Chandelier in the manor for an entire week. Tilä was humongous but how could they have so thoroughly lost Tea?

She was seconds away from summoning Hell to scour the manor for him when she heard footsteps. Rapid footsteps. Multiple feet were fast approaching. She glanced about the catacombs, glaring at whatever group would be running towards her in her moment of frustration. She opened her mouth to hiss at them and tell them to get to work finding her friend.

But then . . . .

She stopped.

She had found him.

And the sight made her ill.

Lola stared up at not many, but one single creature. One, single, gigantic, eight-legged creature. Multiple eyes stared back at her, hairs on the body of the giant being standing on end as it hissed at her.

But it wasn’t the creature she was staring at.

It was the tightly wrapped bundle secured on its abdomen.

Tea’s arms were crossed in an ‘x’ behind his back and bound in silken strands, his legs wrapped just as tight around the knees and calves with the same material. His belly and nethers were exposed. Mostly. They were covered in hundreds of moving forms, which Lola realized were in his hair as well as on his belly. Resting on his bulbous, growing belly.

Spiders.

Tea was terrified of spiders and he was drowning in them.

That . . . that more than anything was what propelled her forward screaming, “You let him go!” The creature roared at her, propelling forward as well. “Let him go! Let him--!”

“Not today, hare!”

Pain.

Sharp . . . brilliant . . . devastating pain.

Lola screamed. She felt feverish as she collapsed on . . . something. Every time she moved it hurt, pinpricks stabbing into her like thousands of needles. She didn’t know where she was anymore. It . . . it wasn’t the catacombs but it was . . . familiar. But strange. 

A doctor's office she had never seen yet knew. No, no she didn’t like it, she was afraid for her life. "It will only hurt for a moment," a voice, a doctor. She wanted to get out, run.

But she was strapped to the gurney. "He lies," that voice was . . . no he had left. He had left her. Shadowy hands held her head still. "The pain will be unbearable,” claws raking through soft curls, "but you’ll endure it like everything else, won’t you?" 

Lola tried to say something, anything. She was gagged, panicked sounds muffled. "You look worried rabbit.” She looked in front of her to see Lance holding two disks of metal attached to cables in his hands. "Never had electroshock therapy?" He grinned. Lola was confused. "It’s quite . . .," he placed the disks to her temples, "refreshing." She screamed at the shocks, screamed and struggled while Alulle's hands moved down her body and Lance laughed and . . . .

She was dreaming. She was dreaming! A nightmare, a venom induced nightmare. Her body was healing it fast enough. She blinked, terrified. Her vision swam between that hospital room and the catacombs. She was afraid and half lucid, but she knew. She knew she had come here to help Tea. 

She hissed at the Phobia she could barely make out past the painful visions. “You . . . bitch,” she managed. It wasn’t her cleverest of insults.

But boy did it get the point across.

She saw Tea on her back, trussed up and carrying her brood. She stared, bleary-eyed, fixated on her friend. He was hurt. He was hurt and he needed her. He needed her more than she needed those horrible visions, that was for damn sure.

Lola’s own venom was made clear to the Phobia through those two words. As well as her consciousness. When Lola’s eyes finally fixed on the tarantula’s face . . . .

The Phobia was staring at her with head tilted.

“You are lucid,” came a high, trilling voice from the massive creature. It was startling how very . . . not quite as terrifying her voice was compared to her form. “You should not be lucid.”

Lola tried to move again, tugging at her wrists only to find they were bound. Her ankles were bound as well. And knees. Swift bonds. How long had she been out? “Let him go . . . or I’ll make you,” she huffed, the stabbing pain from the bite returning angrily, “pay.”

“And how will you do that, hare?” The tarantula turned fully toward Lola, removing the giant nestled on her abdomen from her line of sight. “Or shall I call you rabbit? You are not quite . . . leggy enough to be a hare.”

“I’ll show you leggy,” Lola hissed, her vision finally clearing as her body worked through the poison. “Come here and I’ll kick your ass straight back to Hell!”

The tarantula laughed. Then she folded an arm across her chest and dropped her chin into her other palm. The Phobia laughed. “You heal quickly.”

“Quicker than you.”

“You have quite a mouth. I should silence it.”

“You’re gonna have to. I won’t stop till you let him go.”

Pause. “You want to save this one. Why is that?”

“He’s my best friend, and you’re fucking hurting him, let him GO!”

The tarantula’s head tilted further. Maybe it’d roll off her shoulders. That’d make Lola’s life easier. “He is doing me a service, dear rabbit. And he’s doing it beautifully.”

“I don’t care, you’re still hurting him!” She was going to cry. She was going to cry she was so angry. She felt her throat closing, ready to lose all manner of speech and resort to screaming, hissing, snarling, growling. “Please, let him--!”

“For what?” Lola stopped, as did the rest of her bodily functions it seemed. “If I free him, for what price?”

She didn’t care. Lola really didn’t care. She felt the shameful tears fall as she spoke through gritted teeth, “I don’t care. Just let. Him. Go.”

The tarantula hummed and considered those words. Lola waited. She waited with a patience she didn’t really have. She wanted to scream, fight, kick, scratch, burn the spider out of existence leaving only the ashes of its offspring. She wanted to free Tea. She could only imagine the horrible images going through his head. The thought made more tears well up as the tarantula finally shifted. 

Lola could see Tea’s head. His lips were quivering. His face was purple from tears. Oh God baby no, she thought.

“You realize what you are asking me to give up, don’t you rabbit?”

“What?” The tarantula’s interruption of her thoughts shook her.

“You’re asking me to give up a breeder who not only produces at twice the rate of any other I have had, but can survive what his body endures in that time.” She hummed and pressed her palms together in a praying motion, clearly thinking. She was eloquent. She knew what she was doing, Lola couldn’t help but think. “My children are full from his dreams. Dreams are easy to come by. Do you think . . . you can match the other qualities he possesses?”

Lola’s eyes widened. “W-what?”

The tarantula was moving towards her now. Lola stiffened on the ground where she lay tied. A horror gripped and twisted her stomach. Was she . . . was she really suggesting . . . ? “Would you be willing to take his place, dear rabbit?”

“Excuse--?!”

“I saw your visions.” Lola hissed on impulse at those words. “Such horrible creatures those men. The men of your race are simply despicable. And this,” Lola jerked as a foot of the Phobia’s reached out and brushed over her exposed calf, the creature purring at the softness, “is not your original form. Nor your original race. Look what those monsters did to you, dearest bun.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?!” she spat.

“I promise I will treat you so, so much better than they ever did.”

Lola’s blood was cold in her veins, growing icy by the second. “But Tea . . .,” look at what she’d done to him. Surely she would do the same to Lola.

“He does not have a resistance to my venom, rabbit.” The appendage dragged up Lola’s body, digging too roughly on her brands.

“Watch the marks, bitch.”

“Nansi.”

“Whatever! Watch them!”

“I’ll do more than watch them, dear.”

“How do I know you won’t hurt me like you hurt Tea?” Lola hissed.

And Nansi bent over Lola, coming to cover her body with her own. Nansi was . . . humongous. Lola hadn’t felt this small in a terribly long time. “My intent isn’t to do harm.” But that was what she had done. “I want my children, rabbit.” Her head tilted the other way. “Or shall I say Lola?” Lola hissed and Nansi laughed again. But Nansi soon interrupted, “I want what my mates have denied me. You understand that, don’t you? Wanting something from a lover only to be denied?” That . . . struck a nerve. Several nerves. Too many nerves for Lola to stand. “Over and over and over?” More tears. Were they for Tea? Or for herself? “Can you help me rabbit? Help me have the one thing in this world I have ever truly desired?”

“I’ll help you with anything, just . . . PLEASE!” Lola’s exclamation was more out of desperation to get the tarantula to shut up than anything else. Shut up and let Tea go. 

Stop reminding Lola of what she lost.

A purr. A nuzzle. Hairs. Multiple hairs brushed over Lola’s body and the cultist was shivering. She heard a thud, like a body dropping to the ground. Nansi purred to her, a quiet and overjoyed, “Thank you.”

And then . . . .

She was gone.

And Lola and Tea were left for Luster, Gemmy, and Aiden to collect.

\--

He had been crawling on the ground, pressing himself into corners and shouting like a hog being dragged to the slaughter. The animal cries had been terrible, sending tremors of fear up Aiden’s spine and gripping his heart roughly. It took bringing Lola in to convince Tea to calm, still hurt from her battle with Nansi but desperate to get the point across to their friend. Lola had shown Tea her form, drastically different from the one she had been in when she had belonged to Liam. Even her bright white form had taken a moment to fully sink in with Tea. 

He was not with the Puppeteers. 

Liam and Lance were dead and had no other hold on him.

Still, he would not let anyone approach him. Not Gemmy, not Luster, not even Aiden. It had taken extreme effort to get him to stop clawing at himself, to get him to stop feeling like there were spiders crawling all over him. Aiden hadn’t been able to run his fingers through his hair reassuringly as Tea had done for him after pulling him free of Geist. Aiden hadn’t been able to hold him and tell him the nightmares were just that: nightmares, and nothing more. Tea hadn’t slept, and he had pulled away from everyone who tried to get near him.

Aiden lay feet from him, keeping his eyes level with Tea’s even as they sprawled on the ground watching one another. Tea’s terror drove him mad, and everything inside of him told him to leave and hide. He felt the desire to return to the dark cell where he’d been confined. He considered waiting for Tea elsewhere again, waiting for the giant to come to him.

Tea wasn’t going to be able to this time. Aiden had to stay with him, had to get him through this. “I said I would protect you, kid.” He felt tears gathering in his eyes as he recalled all the ways in which he’d failed Tea. He could add Nansi to his long list of regrets. Tea’s eyes looked so dull and hazy as he watched Aiden lay there crying across from him. Choking back the tears, he explained, “I wish you had let me this time.” Aiden’s eyes darted to the pillows and sheets he and the bugs had tried to cover Tea with only to have them thrown aside. He returned his gaze to Tea. At least he was looking at him now. Before, he wouldn’t even acknowledge him. That wasn’t true. He acknowledged him and a horrible pain washed over him and filled Aiden from the inside. He wanted to assuage it, wanted to take it from Tea but couldn’t. No matter how hard he had tried, he couldn’t. Lying there now, the pain was still there behind that weak gaze. He could feel Tea trying to comprehend the place and time in which he was trapped, but didn’t know how to encourage him back to Aiden.

Tears pooled on the floor beneath Aiden’s face as Tea blinked slowly. “You,” the giant started to whisper, then paused. Aiden saw him start to glance away, turning his face toward the floor.

Before he could completely turn from him, Aiden fought through the tightness in his throat and said, “Don’t.” Tea lay still, moving no further. Aiden fumbled for something to say next. He latched onto a memory, something that would bring Tea back to him. “Do you remember the first tea you got me to try?” Tea breathed shallowly, the slight furrow of his brow giving Aiden hope. He shook his head gently, and Aiden wasn’t sure if it was because the half skinwalker didn’t remember or if it was because he didn’t believe it had happened. “Peach,” he answered for Tea. “You said it would help my stomach.” Tea made no other moves, but Aiden continued pressing with questions. “Remember when I first kissed you?”

Tea’s brow furrowed more. “You were . . . drunk.”

Aiden felt his heart leap at the first real words he’d spoken that weren’t screams. “I was.” 

Tea’s brow furrowed. “Hallow . . . Halloween . . . party.”

Like a fucking idiot, Aiden grinned at the memory of their first kiss. “I woke up and almost didn’t remember what had happened.” He had just known Tea was naked by his side and he had felt amazing.

Tea had been amazing.

Tea’s head turned, but his gaze stayed on the floor. Aiden wanted to beg him to look at him, but let him come to his own. The giant murmured, “You . . . wouldn’t let go of . . . me.” Tea’s eyes shook slightly like he was processing the thought. “You . . . wanted me.” It sounded small and questioning, a hint of sadness tinging the words.

“I want you,” Aiden corrected. He extended a hand towards the giant, sliding it across the floor in hopes that he would take it.

Tea’s eyes locked on his hand. His lips trembled, his eyes looking more and more like glass as he whispered, “How can you?”

Aiden’s throat grew tight again, but he whispered back, “How can I not?” When that garnered no other response from Tea, Aiden uttered in desperation, “Please Rowan. I love you, please look at me.”

Tears spilled from the skinwalker’s glassy eyes as he gazed up at sound of his name. “They said you d-didn’t.”

Aiden’s heart broke. “They don’t fucking know me,” he spat harsher than he intended to. He expected Tea to flinch and shrink.

But he didn’t. His eyes stayed focused on Aiden. “A-Aiden?” Tea started curling in on himself, squeezing his eyes shut and grimacing as the sobs started again.

Aiden tapped the floor lightly with his hand. “Come on, kid.” He couldn’t watch him cry again. No, not without reaching out for him. But Tea had to come to him. He had to. “Come on, trust me Rowan. They’re not here, but I am. I’m here, kid.” His throat started closing as Tea’s sobs grew in volume. “I’m yours Rowan. I’m yours, you’re mine. Remember that? Remember that, kid?”

He almost didn’t wait as soon as Tea’s trembling hand started reaching for his. It had taken all of his willpower to wait for the giant to grasp it on his own. As soon as he did, Aiden was drawing the other to him. Shifting on the floor, he finally wrapped around the other the way he had been wanting to since getting him back. Tea cried against his chest, Aiden absorbing his pain and fear and sadness effortlessly now that they were in physical contact with one another. He held tight and refused to let go, but Tea made no move to get away. For the first time, he made no move to escape. Burying his face in blonde hair, Aiden finally comforted Tea the way he had been wanting to.

When the giant returned the hold just as fiercely, wrapping his arms around Aiden’s waist, Aiden knew the other really had heard him. He had finally heard him.


	29. And Washed the Spider Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tea suffers from the repercussions of Nansi's treatment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad bugs and Liam and Lance warning

Tea shivered, jerking awake at the repetitive dream sequence.

You think he will help you?

Their words pierced him and he curled up on his side, Aiden’s warmth suddenly scorching against his back.

He practically threw you to us.

He was sorry. Aiden was sorry for that. He regretted it every time the topic was brought up, please just shut up about it.

Do you think he loves you?

“He does,” Tea said aloud as he had done in the dream sequence. “He does. He does. He does.” He repeated it to himself over and over until the words had no meaning.

Delusional creature.

The only delusion was that he was still hearing their words and listening. He needed to stop listening. They were wrong. They had to be. He flinched as Aiden curled tighter around him.

How could anyone love a monster?

Tea’s eyes watered as the other man’s arms tightened around him. He had never questioned just how Aiden could love him. After all he’d seen, all he’d done, all he’d been through. How? Aiden suddenly felt constricting around him.

He doesn’t touch you. 

That was a damn lie, just look at how the other was holding him. Tea ignored the scorch of the other’s skin and rolled closer. He’d burn. He’d burn up if it meant he could lie beside Aiden and not them.

Not like we do.

Tea shuddered. He’d never liked the way they’d touched him, no matter how often they had told him to enjoy the little contact they deemed worth giving him. It had burned hotter than Aiden’s skin burned him now. It had been painful, scalding, tearing, cutting him worse than anyone had ever done before or since. He preferred Aiden’s touch. He preferred it. He did. And yet . . . .

And if he doesn’t, can you really say he wants you?

Aiden wanted him. Tea knew, he swore by it. He shrank further in the other’s hold, the shivers persisting as he squeezed his eyes shut and prayed the voices would just stop.

He couldn’t love you when you turned. 

Tea shivered. Aiden had. Aiden had loved him. He’d loved him in such a way.

“Tea?” The other’s concerned voice started a pain in his chest that threatened to swallow Tea whole. Tea shook in his hold, whimpering as Aiden started to draw away. Please don’t, he thought without actually speaking. Please don’t pull away. Please just stay holding him like he mattered, like he was worth something. “What’s wrong?”

How can he love you now?

He could love him like that again. The pain in Tea’s chest spiked and he flipped over, pulling Aiden down by his shoulders and mashing his lips against his. A cry of surprise was muffled by Tea’s tongue sliding into Aiden’s mouth, the skinwalker pulling his lover closer and positioning Aiden so that he was between his legs. Wrapping his legs around the smaller’s hips and keeping him against his core, he met Aiden’s questioning gasps and mixed syllables with, “Please Aiden.”

“Tea, what’s gotten into you?” he asked, bewildered as he leaned over the other.

Aiden let out a cry as the larger rutted against him, both gasping at the pressure. “Please, I need . . . I n-need you.” He lifted his hips again, watching Aiden’s face shift from shock to pleasure as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. “Please Aiden.” He knew it was unusual to beg for this level of intimacy, especially coming from him. But Tea needed it. He needed to prove the voices wrong. He needed them to see that Aiden did want him, that he did—

The smaller pulled out of Tea’s hold and Tea was about to crumble. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the dip in the bed as Aiden moved from between the legs that had been constricting him. Turning his head and getting ready to smother himself with their pillows, he sucked in a harsh breath when Aiden not only returned to where Tea had tried to trap him but began pulling Tea’s underwear free. Relief flooded him, intensifying the ache in his chest as he pulled Aiden down into a bruising kiss. He returned to rutting against Aiden’s hips, which he found to be equally unclothed. He whimpered against Aiden’s lips, expecting to feel the other penetrating him at any moment. He needed it. He needed Aiden, needed to feel the other fill him now.

He keened when he felt slick fingers enter his body, throwing his legs wider apart and thrusting his head back. He shifted down onto Aiden’s hand, the other’s fingers not nearly enough to sate the ache in his chest or silence the voices in his head. He moaned out another series of pleases, to which Aiden replied, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I,” Tea hesitated, realizing what he was about to ask for the first time. He swallowed hard, then begged, “Please hurt me.” He let his eyes open slightly and was so ashamed of the expression on Aiden’s face. But he needed it. He needed the pain. “Please Aiden, please hurt me. I need the p-pain. I need-d it.”

Aiden was the one shaking now and Tea felt his apprehension. He felt awful asking this of him, squeezing his eyes shut as tears rose up in them. “Tea, I’m not—”

“I know what I’m asking,” he said through desperate whines, the fingers having frozen inside him. The ache felt . . . it felt like he was bleeding internally. He needed this. He needed Aiden, proof. He needed proof. “Please Aiden. Please. I need—”

The fingers withdrew and he was ready to scream, the voices in his head just as loud in their mirth at his desperation. A noise hit his ears as he lifted his hips at the absence, hands falling to the mattress and gripping the pillow under his head as he bit his lip and tried to keep from sounding off in his frustration.

Then Aiden was sliding into him, splitting him wide open and ringing pained cries from him he hadn’t let loose in what felt like a really, really long time. Aiden was still, and Tea could feel his fear of moving. Still Tea let out a feral whine and begged him to. The smaller obeyed, the movement and stretch stripping him of any resolve as his talons tore the fabric on their bed. Aiden’s hips rocked into his, Tea’s eyes leaking saltwater as he tried, he tried so hard, to move in time with Aiden’s thrusts. It hurt, it hurt, oh God it really did hurt but he needed it. He needed to be reminded. He needed to be wanted by him, belong to him . . . .

He didn’t realize Aiden had stopped until he was pulling out. Tea did scream, the cry a mimicry of a wolf howling. “Tea, you are bleeding!” Aiden yelled over him to emphasize.

Tea didn’t care. He knew he was torn and bloody. He could feel it. He needed to feel it. Feeling his skin slide together, the sensation of blood and pain all too familiar to him, he let the tears fall from his eyes. “Needed the p-p—,” he couldn’t finish. Aiden was leaving. Why was he leaving?

Tea let out another howl as the bed dipped and Aiden got off the mattress. The next thing he knew, the smaller was rushing back to his side and explaining, “I’m going to clean you up, okay?” The other cupped Tea’s face in both hands and that’s when Tea could feel him really stopping and assessing the skinwalker. Tea squeezed his eyes shut against the agony within the other, agony he had caused yet again. They . . . had he really proven Lance and Liam wrong? Or had he confirmed what they had been saying? “Tea, what are you thinking?” It didn’t matter. If Aiden had wanted him before, he certainly wouldn’t want him now. The air he pulled in set his lungs on fire as he started sobbing. “Tea, talk to me!” Aiden slid back onto the bed beside him, bringing Tea into a hold just as scorching as it had been at the start. His face buried in Aiden’s chest, Aiden ran fingers through Tea’s hair and rubbed his back. He shushed him and tried to hide his own panic, but Tea felt it. He felt it, and knew it was his fault. “Rowan, it’s okay, please just talk to me.”

The skinwalker shook his head against his lover’s chest, but before he could stop himself the words were spilling from his mouth. “How can you w-want me?” 

There was a long pause, followed by a stunned, “What?”

And then he just couldn’t stop. “I’m a monst-ter. I’m scarred, I’m tainted, I’ve been used-d for everything under the s-sun. How can you want-t me?” He sobbed. “How can you even l-look at me?”

Tea didn’t remember hearing an answer. But he did remember Aiden staying by his side the remainder of the night. He remembered the smaller clinging to him as he fell asleep crying against his chest. He didn’t let go. Though Tea would have understood, he did not let him go.

\--

“I need to ask you a favor.” Every word was calculated and precise and calm, but it still didn’t detract from the fact that Aiden was asking a favor of a goddamn bug. He kept his gaze cast down so he didn’t have to look up at the hunched butterfly in human form, knowing as soon as he glimpsed its five eyes set into a for the most part expressionless face he was going to have a heart attack. His heart was beating rapidly talking to Luster as is.

And he could hear the butterfly gloating as he responded, “Anything for my favorite brain to pick.” Aiden shuddered as the bug chuckled. “Perhaps some snuggles?”

Aiden wrinkled his nose at the way the word ‘snuggles’ sounded on the butterfly’s incredibly long tongue. It was strange and disconcerting. Luster had not let that go. Couldn’t he please let that go? “No, I need you to—”

“What are you going to give me in return?”

Anything if it meant Aiden got to finish his request. “Name it. I need you to keep Tea’s head free of nightmares.” Like you tried to do for me, he thought.

Luster went still and Aiden made the mistake of looking up at the humanoid bug’s face. He felt himself start to shake in remembrance of another Phobia entirely, and felt like he should know better than to fear the one who had saved him. Especially since he worked so hard to make sure Aiden was comfortable now.

In truth, Aiden was getting closer and closer to not flinching from the bugs that guarded him and Tea.

He jumped and nearly bolted when Gemmy rose up out of the corner of his eye and crouched on the countertop. “I got him,” he rasped, head tilting to the side as he analyzed Aiden. “I know his head.”

Luster hissed to Gemmy, and Aiden took a step back as the earwig cooed in response. Whatever the conversation was about, it sounded like an argument to someone who didn’t know the language of Phobias. Who knew if it even was a language? It really could just be a series of grunts and whines for all he knew.

Aiden jumped when Luster looked back at him and declared, “Done.” Gemmy snapped his jaws twice before climbing back down to the ground and slinking out of the kitchen on all fours as per usual.

Still shaking, he asked, “And price?”

“Never you mind.” Luster started to leave. Aiden thought he was going to say something else, but then he simply departed.

Left in the kitchen, Aiden decided to quell the shaking by fixing his still sleeping partner some tea. As he waited for the kettle to boil with a cup ready and waiting for water, he stared at the open packet that was still attached to the teabag. In a flash of inspiration (and a need to take his mind off the previous exchange), he pulled the second drawer beside the oven open and reached inside for a pen. He loathed the scratchiness of his handwriting, but he felt like this was worth writing down. Besides, he might not get the chance to say it aloud before he forgot the words completely.

The kettle whistled and he left the pen on the counter after pouring the water into the cup. Carefully carrying the mug back to their room, he set the tea down on Tea’s side of the bed. Crawling under the covers and lying flush against Tea, he wrapped himself around the taller’s sleeping form. His embrace tightened as he buried his nose in the other’s blonde hair and whispered, “I’m sorry I hurt you.” Again. Tea could swear all he wanted that he’d wanted it, but Aiden knew better. He knew what it was like to have things whispering in his ear, a series of untruths trying to outweigh the truths. Kissing the back of Tea’s neck, he tried to drift off without just blurting out the words he’d written on the packet of tea.

‘Rowan,

I want you even if you are scarred. You were used, but to me you aren’t tainted. If you’re a monster, you’re my monster.

And I’m yours.

Love you.’


	30. They Had Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luster and Aiden still don't always get along, but have reached a new understanding.
> 
> This piece is cowritten with Aiden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad Bugs

“Look who’s up and moving again.”

Aiden pinned the butterfly with a gimlet stare. “Don’t even . . .,” he sighed. He wasn’t up for it. Not with the butterfly. He was overall in a bad mood and he didn’t have the energy to tolerate anything. Still the butterfly insisted on not only standing unbearably close, but actually breathing down his neck. Aiden shuddered. He imagined this was how Tea felt whenever someone was too close and he didn’t want them to be, no matter how much he trusted or cared for them. “Luster, get off.”

“I’m not touching you.”

And Tea said Aiden was a toddler. What the fuck did he call Luster? “I’m not in the mood, okay?”

“Tell me about it.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Aiden spun on the butterfly then. The other’s seemingly emotionless face showed no indication the butterfly’s words were meant to be sarcastic, but still. Aiden didn’t like the tone the other had taken. “You wanna say that again?”

“I said, tell me about it.”

Luster’s head tilted and Aiden’s blood boiled. “You wanna fucking go?” Why couldn’t the bug just leave him the hell alone? Just for like, a minute. One minute of peace. That’s all he wanted. Not even Tea hovered this much, and Tea could make a career in hovering.

“Is that an invitation to fight?”

Aiden answered him with a swing, which Luster caught with two of his four hands. The feeling of exoskeleton against his arm sent an involuntary shiver through him he thought he had gotten over and he swung with his other fist. That one was also caught, and soon Aiden was being flung across the common room. He landed on some couch cushions, the impact softened but still hard enough to knock some air out of him. He immediately started to struggle back upright, but the butterfly returned to settle over him.

And Aiden. Panicked.

He kicked and struck out wildly, half gasps bursting past his lips as eyes went wide and heart hammered. It hurt. His chest hurt from the pounding, and his eyes stung from fighting to stay open. He forgot all sense of how to fight properly as Luster pinned his hands and straddled his waist. Aiden felt himself start to form armor, but the feeling quickly faded as Luster’s second pair of hands reached up to cup his face gently. “L-L-Lu—,” he tried to speak, tried to say the other’s name. He could hardly feel his tongue through the panic that had made his chest clench. “L-let g—”

“Shhh.” The Phobia’s antennae brushed over Aiden’s face softly, tapping along his cheeks and forehead reassuringly. “You are not relaxed.” How the hell could Aiden be relaxed? The other was pinning him. A bug was pinning him.

Luster was pinning him.

Aiden whimpered as the other continued to hold him in place for a moment longer. Aiden’s muscles became so petrified that even after Luster let go of his arms they stayed where they had been pressed. Luster’s palms rested on Aiden’s sides and the butterfly started cooing to him in a way that he had only heard him do with Gemmy. Aiden didn’t even move when Luster let go of his face just so he could nuzzle it with his own. Small hisses arose between coos and Aiden finally broke and asked, “What are you s-saying?”

The antennae wrapped around his head as palms rested against his jaw and waist. “You are safe with me.” Another coo. Another hiss. “Always safe with me.” Aiden . . . he believed him.

And though his chest still hurt and he still was in a terrible mood, he didn’t have to get through it alone. Luster made certain he did not go through it alone.

He tried to sleep later. He knew it had been a bad idea. The feeling in his guts had warned him, told him the night was not safe, that sleeping was not safe.

But he hadn’t listened.

The comfort of his lover’s body had pulled him under, the soft breaths and feel of Tea’s beating heart calming him. The beginning was peaceful, relaxing for a time, and he truly believed he was safe.

Falling farther and farther into its trap.

Into his trap.

A sound tore itself from Aiden’s throat, foreign and yet all too familiar as his own cries were ringing in his ears. The former Puppeteer’s back hit the old, but familiar - far too familiar – wall. His thoughts scattering like shards of glass upon the cemented floor, no longer able to run - never able to hide - his palms once more bloody and scratched from scuffing against the ground in vain attempts to get away, to pull himself to freedom and away from the beasts. Insides twisting in that too real feeling that left him gasping for air, drowning in the nightmare, and it was a nightmare.

The soft hiss,

And the thrum of wings rubbing together in agitation, bringing his old cage into view.

Aiden lurched to the side, blood chilling and turning to ice in his veins making everything so heavy. Skin igniting as a rough hand gripped his shoulder painfully, throwing him back into the wall with a sickening crack that left the cultist gasping pathetically, disoriented and dizzy.

“I didn't give you permission to leave.”

There was the crunch of bones that had the smaller flinching back, a wet sound of liquid yielding to gravity and the smaller gagged. Tears burning at the corner of his eyes as he relinquished the ability to see, closing them and turning his head away, far away, at the other sounds of Geist’s feeding.

“Tea help- “

There was a louder hiss, fangs snapping together inches from Aiden’s face. Barely noticing the broken plea for his lover leaving his own lips as Aiden was cut short in Geist’s fit of rage when hearing the cursed name. Exoskeleton digging into the flesh of the human’s neck as the mantis’s hand locked into place around its prey’s throat.

“He’s not coming for you.” Another thrum of wings rubbing together in anger. “They aren’t coming for you.” Another crunch of the Phobia’s offspring in its own jaws. “They are never going to come for you - “

Aiden cried out as he was shoved into the wall painfully, wood scratching into the skin of his back, fear seizing his heart and locking him into place at the memories of what was supposed to happen - what was going to happen.

“TEA?!” The noise tore from his sore throat, a desperate cry that was cut short - smaller hands coated in exoskeleton slid up onto his hips and onto -

The warm water gathering at the corners of his eyes ran freely down the ravenlord’s cheeks, burning with each trail as the larger monster brushed its claws over his stomach in a mockery of affection. When had it - the movements inside had him squirming under Geist - how had he not noticed before -

“Now be good and I won't have to teach you what happens when you disobey me, again.”

At the statement the Phobia pushed its hand against Aiden’s stomach with a bit more force to prove its point - the press eliciting a whimper and groan from the smaller at the shift of writhing masses of Geist’s soft shelled eggs inside.

“Ge- Gei -,” the hand was removed just as quickly, the Phobia’s mouth quick to press to Aiden's cheek, cooing and hissing softly along his jaw.

“Ssh, it's alright, I think you know~ it's alright small one.”

Something slick pressed to the inner side of Aiden's thigh, the human jolting and crying out as Geist continued to try and sooth him over the screams. It writhed and squirmed and the smaller's vision grew unfocused - Terror ripping through him - the feel of exoskeleton on his face switching to that of a feather, light and soft, a heavy material restricting his legs as Aiden kicked desperately at it - anything to get it off. While the lull of Geist’s word changed to a low hum - and mixture of words and sounds as the ringing in his ears grew louder. A phantom feeling of Geist - the eggs - the hands - the pain -

Red eyes snapping open as ebony pupils narrowed to barely visible slits, the first thing Aiden noticed - was that his arms were pinned - two more hands composed of exoskeleton cupping his face - and it made it seem wrong - disoriented and unable to see yet the cultist thrashed Geist wasn't - he couldn't take him - the feathery material brushed along his cheek again - that wasn't - Aiden stilled for a second - blankets those were - those were blankets and -

“Aiden please! We're right here stop moving or you're going to hurt yourself - please -”

That . . . sound - that sound made it feel like his lungs were collapsing, gasping and heaving for air that wouldn't come and noticing - finally feeling - his muscles twitch and work under Ge - No - it was Luster . . . it was Luster and Tea - Luster was holding him carefully . . . Tea was - he could see the familiar gold rings in the darkness - once a sign for danger - now it was - 

They were . . . . 

In a moment Aiden went limp. He couldn't discern their words, but he finally - finally felt safe - small fragments of sentences but the feeling of hands clammy skin and antenna on his sweat soaked face, obsidian hair clinging to his forehead - it was a relief - he was awake - alive. Pulled gently up into a sitting position and held by both of his - his family - his lovers.

“H . . . he's g . . . gone?”

Tea was the first to respond, or the quickest, to his hoarse and broken question, Aiden didn't know, but latching onto those words - to Tea's words.

“He's gone, Aiden it's okay, he's gone and he's not coming back.”

there was silence, that quiet moment between Luster’s soft coos and whines, and Tea's comforting sounds as Aiden finally recognized where he was - no - Geist was not there - and no - he was fine - nothing in his body …. No creatures from his nightmares- shakily wrapping arms around both Luster and Tea - pulling them close and allowing himself to relax.

Luster and Tea warm around him, breathing soft and slow to help control his own…. Confined and - and secure secure and safe - no Geist.

These thoughts running in circles in his mind - soon the breaking of daylight lit the room, the sunrise bright and blinding but welcoming as he realized, they were still there, watching Aiden with worry in their eyes as he drifted in and out through the night, the light now allowing him to focus properly -

“. . . Tea-”

He was silenced with a soft kiss, the warmth building in his chest -

“It's okay Aiden, “

Luster followed close behind with a gentle brush of antenna.

The smaller let a small smile tug on his lips, eyes tired but curling closer to his lovers - protectors - as all three snuggled into the warmth of the blankets.

“You came.”


	31. Just One Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tea had hoped to never be asked to do this again, and yet here Luster was.

He had asked for it. Luster had quite literally asked for it. He had pointed to the brand on the back of Gemmy’s shoulder and said, “Can you do this to me?”

Tea had been so taken aback he had stared for what felt like ten minutes. “Why?”

“So we are never separated again.”

Luster’s logic wasn’t unfounded. However, it seemed . . . misinformed. “That brand means you belong to me. It means you are never to be separated from me.”

“He’s bound to you. Bind me to you too.”

“It means I own you.”

“The same way you own him?” Gemmy was quiet this whole discussion. That said more than enough to Tea. Gemmy liked this idea of Luster’s about as much as Tea did. “I already hold you in high regard. Now give me the same treatment.”

Tea was uncomfortable with this. He didn’t like it one bit. After Gemmy, he had sworn never to attempt to take another beast. Gemmy had been hard to handle on his own, and their bond was unbreakable. Tea hadn’t wanted to put something else through what he’d been through, and he hadn’t wanted to unintentionally give Gemmy an excuse to kill for dominance. Tea shook his head. “What you’re asking is . . . I don’t think . . . I can’t do it.”

“Yes you can,” Luster declared without a second thought.

Tea shook his head. “I don’t have the materials. And . . . I don’t want to own you like that.” He didn’t want Luster to end up resenting him.

But it seemed, in some way, he already did. “You own what’s mine. You may as well take me too.” The words came out like a series of hisses. “Because I’m not going anywhere. And I want a solid guarantee that I can’t.”

Tea stared long and hard at the butterfly, considering his words. Then Tea sighed. “Give me some time to do some research. I will brand you, but,” he cringed, “I don’t want to have to. If I can, I want to perform the contract without a branding.”

Luster nodded, then hissed. He cooed to Gemmy, and Tea stood to head for the library. The cult’s knowledge was extensive. There had to be another way that didn’t require Tea to mark Luster the way Gemmy and he had been marked.

And Luster wouldn’t leave him alone until a solution was found. Or Tea gave up.

Later . . . .

“You’re really going through with it.”

Tea gripped the plants and stones in his palm, arranging them in the pattern of the Puppeteer symbol. Gritting his fangs painfully, he still had old manuscripts and books lying across their table space as Luster sat on Gemmy and waited.

And Aiden’s very clear disappointment in them wasn’t helping. “If it works, it works.” Luster will have the brand on one of his palms and Tea will have given the bug what he wants. “If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.”

“You’re going to brand him no matter what.” Aiden’s voice was almost a hiss. If Tea hadn’t known him for so long, he would have assumed he’d picked the sound up from Luster. “Why are you doing this to him?”

Tea was honestly hurt by the words. He was glad when Luster perked up and said, “It’s my choice.”

“Why?!” Aiden shouted.

Tea flinched. This time, the half skinwalker did respond. “Insurance.”

“Wasn’t losing your soul to the old bat bad enough? Now you’re losing your head to—”

“Look, I get you don’t like it!” Tea snapped. “Neither do I!” Tea’s heart was hammering. He couldn’t believe he was actually going to try this. And . . . it hurt. Everything about this hurt. He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want anything to do with this symbol. And yet . . . Luster demanded it. “It’s not for me.” Nothing he ever did was for himself. That’s how he felt, at least.

“Whatever,” Aiden growled as he started to storm out. “Idiots,” he grumbled as he left.

Tea sighed, blinking away his tears as he hesitated only a moment longer. “Let’s do this,” he uttered, holding his palm out to Luster. “Ready?”

The bug clasped his hand tightly. “Yes.”

With that, Tea began the oath. “My strings are your limbs, your limbs are my extensions. Hoof, paw, wing, claw, we move as one. We breathe as one. I the Master, you the puppet.” He repeated it twice more, feeling a growing warmth between their palms as he recited. It grew warmer and warmer between their hands, and by the time he reached the final incantation it was scorching. Luster started to hiss and Tea sped along as best as he could without stumbling over the words and ruining the flow. Gemmy’s head lifted at the hiss, turning a glare that switched from Tea to Luster back to Tea. Once finished, Tea was sweating and Luster tore his palm from Tea’s.

From his new Master’s.

It had worked.

Tea looked to his own unmarked palm, then to Luster’s. Burned into the chitin was the Puppeteer handle and heart.

Luster cooed, pleased with Tea and himself. But all Tea wanted to do was return the herb and stones to where he had found them and place the books back on the shelf. Never to be used again.

He never wanted to have to do this again.


	32. Up Came the Sun and Dried Up All the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nansi makes a decision.

Nansi could stand over Lola’s bed with such ease. The rabbit had no idea she was there. Perfect. The spider brushed a palm over the cultist’s soft fur, gently caressing the tufts and curls and softness.

So soft.

She was so much softer than the giant she had traded herself for.

Can you really handle me darling rabbit? Nansi thought. She cooed quietly, watching the rabbit’s ears twitch in response. She silenced and waited . . . but Lola didn’t awaken. Good. Nansi didn’t need her awake for this.

The cult had been experiencing some semblance of unrest of late. Nansi had gone to great lengths to stay in hiding, but she couldn’t keep it up much longer. She needed to depart for the time being.

She was debating taking the rabbit with her.

It was a pity so many knew of the cultist under her. She watched Lola shift in her bed, listened to the springs and counted her breaths. Healthy. Beautiful. Delicate.

But not too delicate.

She was a summoner. A coveted one. There were people who wanted her. Nansi wanted her.

Nansi owned her.

But Nansi was no fool. She knew better than to challenge those contending for Lola head on. She’d dipped into the woman’s mind and done her research.

She would have to wait.

The very urge made her hairs flatten and stand and flatten and stand again. She was irritated by the notion that she couldn’t simply take what was promised her. She wanted her end of the bargain. She wanted her brood. She had a healthy number from Tea at least . . . .

But what she really wanted was Lola. She wanted what the rabbit could give her. She wanted what was hers, what was rightfully hers.

Patience.

Nansi needed patience.

The rabbit was too important. People would notice. They would come for her. The most important thing Nansi had retained was discretion. She wanted to maintain discretion. These were powerful creatures Geist had introduced her to.

What a fool he was.

But if she was patient . . . she would have Lola eventually. That was what gave her the push to leave. Leave and hide. Leave and hide and wait.

She brushed her hand through Lola’s hair one more time. “I will be back for you dear rabbit.”

She was gone by the time Lola woke with wide eyes and horrified breaths, feeling as though she were being watched.


	33. The Killer Wasp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The OPM of South America has his own Phobia to deal with.

“Sting him.”

Stab. 

Steek looked up then, hissing out, “Again?”

But his Master shook his head. “Hold him.”

Steek obeyed, wings rubbing in an annoyed hum.

This was the norm: stinging once to induce powerful hallucinations. Daniel very rarely allowed him this much, but he acknowledged Steek's need to feed. The hallucinations of the wicked and depraved, the lying and betraying, the disobedient and abhorrent were all well and good. However . . . .

He desperately missed the taste of death.

He longed for the light to go out in his victim's eyes.

He lusted for their last thoughts.

He loathed Daniel for taking those sequences from him.

“Again?”

“Hold him.”

So often those words clashed. Steek's stinger actually twitched with need at times as his antennae dragged greedily over the body of the one he was holding.

“Again?”

“Hold him.”

Even when Daniel collected samples of his venom did his stinger twitch. Daniel had fought him on many occasions when he was particularly determined. He'd even tried to sting the chemist, but his stinger always met Daniel's own chitin protected skin. The man was talented when it came to controlling his shifts, even more talented when it came to predicting when Steek was likely to misbehave.

“Again?”

Steek glanced hopefully to Daniel, resentment piling up. It had been five hundred sixty-four days since his last killing. It had been a brutal one. Daniel had been particularly angry with that one. Had to be. Daniel was always so merciful, so good, so disgustingly forgiving. 

But when it came to murderers and defilers . . . .

Steek stared at his Master, so filled with hope he could attack the man if he said no.

But he didn't.

Daniel glared at the filth Steek was pinning. He didn't look at Steek until he'd managed to unlock his jaw to give an order.

Steek didn't need to know the crimes of the human under him.

He knew they were vile the moment Daniel hissed in an almost Phobia tone, “Again.”

Daniel turned away just as Steek drove his stinger into the screaming man once again. He drove it in multiple times, each spike of venom small but deadly. Potent.

Fatal.

The glory of deaths by Phobia venom was both the sweetness and high of the sequences and the length of time it took for the victim to suffer. More than anything . . . . 

Steek loved the taste of suffering.


End file.
